Turkey’s budget performance tops 25 EU members, says minister

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

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Turkey’s overall budget deficit is forecast to be around 0.8 percent in 2014, some 0.3 percent lower than previous estimates, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said in a written statement on Dec. 15.

“With this figure, Turkey will have a better budget performance than 25 members of the 28-nation EU bloc,” Şimşek said.

Turkey’s state budget had a surplus of around 3.6 billion Turkish Liras in November and a deficit of around 11.3 billion liras in the first 11 months of the year, he added. 

“The 11-month deficit is much lower than our previous target, which was around 24.4 billion liras. We have also revised our annual budget deficit figure down by 8.8 billion liras in the Medium Term Economic Program for 2015-2017,” Şimşek stated.

“In this vein, our deficit forecast for the year-end is now 0.8 percent, around 0.3 percent lower than our previous forecast. This makes Turkey a better performer than 25 EU members in realizing budget targets,” he also said.