Turkish budget runs 1.6 billion liras surplus, signaling ‘strong year’

ANKARA

Turkey ran a 1.67 billion Turkish Liras budget surplus and the non-interest surplus amounted to nearly 5 billion liras in February, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced March 17. AA photo

Turkey’s strong budget performance debut indicates that the government can achieve its year-end target for 2014, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said, commenting on the February budget data announced March 17.

Turkey ran a 1.67 billion Turkish Liras budget surplus and the non-interest surplus amounted to nearly 5 billion liras in February, according to Finance Ministry figures announced March 17.

“The budget that logged 3.6 billion liras of surplus proves that the firm financial stance persists and the budget target foreseen for the year-end will be realized,” Şimşek said in a statement released after the announcement of the figures.

Recalling that the central government budget ran a 1.4 billion lira deficit last February, he underlined the “remarkable improvement” in the budget performance, saying the decline in expenditures was the main factor behind the better performance.

“While interest expenditures decreased by 33.4 percent in February, non-interest budget expenditures only rose a slight amount of 1.7 percent,” Şimşek said.

In addition to trimmed down spending, significantly rising incomes helped the government to record an improved budget balance, he added.

Total budget revenues soared by 5.9 percent and tax income rose by 7 percent on an annual basis. “If you remember, we foresaw a modest budget revenue growth of 3.5 percent for the whole of 2014. The revenues soared above this level in just the first few months, when domestic demand was relatively low,” Şimşek stated.