Turkey: Government gross debt stock up in June

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA

The Turkish government’s gross debt stock totaled 969.8 billion Turkish liras (nearly $209 billion) at the end of June, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Friday.

Last month, the gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- rose 19.5 percent year-on-year, compared to 811.8 billion Turkish liras (around $231.28 billion) of debt stock in June 2017.

Some 561.2 billion Turkish liras (around $120.95 billion) or nearly 58 percent of the debt was denominated in local currency, while 408.6 billion liras (around $88.1 billion) of debt was in foreign currency.

On a monthly basis, the central government debt stock rose by 1.1 percent, up from 959 billion Turkish liras (nearly $227 billion) at the end of May.

The stock of Treasury receivables amounted to 17.8 billion Turkish liras (some $3.84 billion) as of June 30.

"Local governments, with the stock of 11.4 billion Turkish liras, hold the largest share of Treasury receivables," the undersecretariat said, noting that the total amount of receivables collected by the Treasury was nearly 1.1 billion liras ($237 million) by the end of June.

One U.S. dollar was traded for 4.64 Turkish liras as of end of the last month, while the average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.51 as of end of June 2017, according to the Turkish Central Bank.

As of Dec. 31, 2017, the 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.