Turkish government runs $4.66 bln deficit for Jan-Sept

ANKARA

Turkey's government has run a 13.5 billion Turkish liras ($4.66 billion) budget deficit for the first nine months of 2015, the Turkish Finance Minister said on Friday.

The amount was compatible with the government's estimate of 21 billion Turkish liras ($6.8 billion) budget deficit for 2015, Mehmet Simsek said.

Simsek said, at a press conference in Ankara, that the September budget deficit was 14.1 billion Turkish liras ($4.9 billion) -- the September budget deficit was widened by interest payments and early pension payments before feast of the Sacrifice holiday from Sept. 23 to 28.

The reason for the year-to-date deficit's coming in lower than the September deficit is because there were budget surpluses in several months this year, Simsek said.

There was a budget surplus of 1.6 billion Turkish liras ($540 million) in April, 2.4 billion Turkish liras ( $915 million) in February and a 3.8 billion Turkish liras ($1.54 billion) surplus in January.

According to the ministry, Turkey's government budget revenue has reached 354.2 billion Turkish liras ($122.5 billion) in the first nine months of 2015, an 13 percent increase compared with the same period of last year.

Budget expenditures for first nine months rose to 367.7 billion Turkish liras ($127.1 billion) marking a 13 percent increase year-on-year. Interest expenses stood at 44.8 billion liras ($15.5 billion) in that period.

Government revenue in September was 33.8 billion Turkish liras ($11.7 billion) with an 11.5 percent increase year-on-year, while budget expenditure was 48 billion Turkish liras ($16.6 billion), up 21.2 percent from a year earlier.

Simsek forecast that budget expenses for the 2015 fiscal year will reach 503 billion Turkish liras ($174 billion), while budget income will be at 478.5 billion Turkish liras ($165.4 billion), resulting in a budget deficit of 24.5 billion liras ($8.46 billion), an amount slightly higher than the initial estimate of 21 billion Turkish liras ($7.26 billion).

"We have moved the payment of pensions to an earlier date. There is a 6-billion-liras periodicity in September because of that. Nonetheless, the 9-month budget figures are in compliance with budget targets," Simsek said.

Simsek forecast that Turkey will reach its budget deficit goal in 2015. "There is no need to worry. We can easily reach revised targets and others in this year's budget," he said.

"The public sector will have a zero deficit at the end of 2015. We will allocate more resources to investments, education and health this year. But we will manage to accomplish the budget targets. The budget deficit to GDP ratio will be 1.3 percent in 2015," Simsek added.

In 2014, Turkey's Finance Ministry estimated budget expenses for the 2015 fiscal year would reach 473 billion Turkish liras ($192 billion), while budget income would reach 451 billion ($183.5 billion), resulting in a budget deficit of 21 billion Turkish liras ($8.6 billion).

“We will spend 52.1 billion liras ($18 billion) for investments next year and transfer 16.9 billion liras ($5.9 billion) to the agricultural sector. We will increase spending on areas like investments and other areas, and we will cut personal expenses just as much as the deflator next year," Simsek said. The deflator is a measure of price inflation.

"We also aim to increase investments a bit more than we initially envisaged if possible. We have necessary resources for reforms,” Simsek also added.

The Turkish central government's budget ran a deficit of 22.7 billion Turkish liras ($10 billion) in 2014.