By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

The Turkish government’s gross debt stock totaled 959 billion Turkish liras (nearly $217 billion) at the end of May, the Treasury Undersecretariat announced on Wednesday.

Last month, the gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- rose 18.8 percent year-on-year, compared to 806.8 billion Turkish liras (around $226 billion) of debt stock in May 2017.

Some 556.4 billion Turkish liras (around $126 billion) or 58 percent of the debt was denominated in local currency while 402.6 billion liras (around $91 billion) of debt was in foreign currency.

On a monthly basis, the central government debt stock surged 4.1 percent, up from 921.1 billion Turkish liras (nearly $226.8 billion) at the end of April.

The stock of Treasury receivables amounted to 17.7 billion Turkish liras (some $4 billion) as of May 31.

"Local governments with the stock of 11.3 billion liras ($2.5 billion) hold the largest share of Treasury receivables," the undersecretariat said, noting that the total amount of receivables collected by the Treasury was nearly 872 million liras ($197 million) by the end of May.

One U.S. dollar was traded for 4.42 Turkish liras on average this May, while the average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.57 in the same month last year, according to the Turkish Central Bank.

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.