Turkish Central Bank reserves stand at $105.8B in July

ANKARA

The Turkish Central Bank’s total reserves stood at $105.8 billion as of July 31, the bank announced on Friday.

Official reserve assets jumped 8.3% compared to $97.7 billion as of end-June, according to the bank's international reserves and foreign currency liquidity report.

In July, foreign currency reserves – in convertible foreign currencies – rose to $62.6 billion, a monthly rise of 12.6%.

As another sub-item of official reserve assets, gold reserves – including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped – climbed 2.6% last month from the previous month to reach $41.6 billion.

At the end of July 2020, the bank's total reserves were $90.3 billion, of which $45.1 billion were in foreign currency along with $43.6 billion of gold reserves.

The bank's reserves will surpass $115 billion by the end of 2021, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a news conference in Istanbul on Friday ahead of his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Short-term predetermined net drains of the central government and the CBRT – foreign currency loans, securities and FX deposit liabilities – fell 10.9% this July from a month earlier, reaching at $20.2 billion.

Of this amount, $14.5 billion belongs to principal repayments and $5.7 billion to interest repayments, it added.

The CBRT report also revealed that contingent short-term net drains on foreign currency stood at $46.1 billion last month, up 2.3% compared to June.

According to the bank's definition, contingent short-term net drains on foreign currency consists of “collateral guarantees on debt due within one year” and “other contingent liabilities" which are the banking sector’s required reserves in blocked accounts in foreign currency and gold, and letters of credit items on the CBRT’s balance sheet.