Turkey: Government gross debt stock up in April

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkish government’s gross debt stock stood at 921.1 billion Turkish liras (nearly $226.8 billion) at the end of April, the Undersecretariat of Treasury announced on Monday.

Last month, the gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies households -- was up 15.8 percent year-on-year, compared with 795.1 billion Turkish liras (around $217.2 billion) of debt stock in April 2017.

Some 553.1 billion Turkish liras (around $136.2 billion) or 60 percent of the debt was denominated in local currency while 368.1 billion (around $90.6 billion) of debt were in foreign currency.

In April, the central government debt stock rose 0.87 percent from 913.1 billion Turkish liras (nearly $234.7 billion) at the end of March.

The stock of Treasury receivables amounted to 17.3 billion Turkish liras (some $4.26 billion) as of April 30.

"Local governments with the stock of 11.2 billion ($2.75 billion) hold the largest share of Treasury receivables," the Undersecretariat said, noting that the total amount of receivables collected by the Treasury was nearly 850 million (some $210 million) by the end of April.

According to the Turkish Central Bank, the average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 4.06 this April while one dollar was traded for 3.66 Turkish liras on average the same month last year.

As of Dec. 31, 2017, Turkish government’s gross debt stock amounted to nearly 876.5 billion Turkish liras ($227.6 billion), while the figure was around 760 billion Turkish liras ($217.1 billion) at the end of the previous year.