ANKARA
Turkey's central government budget has run a deficit of 22.7 billion Turkish liras ($10 billion) in 2014, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Thursday.
It is 10.6 billion Turkish liras ($4.6 billion) less than the initial government forecast of 33.3 billion Turkish liras ($14.5 billion) Simsek said.
"There has been no excess spending before the election this year. We have torn the words 'election spending' out of our dictionaries," Simsek said.
According to the ministry, Turkey ran a budget deficit of 11.3 billion liras ($5 billion) in December of last year, down from 17.3 billion Turkish lira ($7.5 billion) in the previous year.
According to the finance ministry, government revenues were 425.8 billion Turkish liras ($187.5 billion) in 2014, a 9.3 percent increase from 2013.
Budget expenditure for the same period rose to 448.4 billion Turkish liras ($197.3 billion), a 9.8 percent increase year-on-year.
