Central government budget posts surplus in August

ANKARA

The central government budget produced a surplus of 51.27 billion Turkish Liras in August, thanks to strong tax revenues.

Budget expenditures grew 86 percent last month to 563 billion liras, with interest payments rising 285 percent from August 2022 to 87 billion liras, data from the Finance Ministry showed on Sept. 15.

The annual increase in non-interest expenditures was 70 percent.

Overall revenues, on the other hand, rose by 100 percent to amount to 614 billion liras.

Tax revenues leaped 100 percent, with the value-added tax collection increasing 288 percent year-on-year to 51 billion liras, while special consumption tax revenues rose 165 percent from August 2022 to 104.1 billion.

Consequently, the budget produced a primary surplus of 138 billion last month.

In the first eight months of 2023, the budget deficit amounted to 383 billion liras, against a surplus of 33.1 billion liras in the same period of 2022.

The primary surplus, however, declined by 126 percent year-on-year to 16.7 billion liras.

The government’s new medium-term program forecast a budget deficit of 1.63 trillion liras, or 6.4 percent of the expected GDP in 2023. The government expects the deficit to decline to 6 percent of national income in 2024.