Gov’t vows to maintain fiscal discipline after budget posts surplus in April

Turkey’s government ran a 5.4 billion-Turkish Lira ($1.83 billion) budget surplus in April.
      
According to economists, the profit transfer of over 9.5 billion liras ($3.2 billion) by the Central Bank to the Treasury played a leading role in the hike of tax revenues in April. 

The Central Bank posted 13.7 billion liras ($4.6 billion) in profit in 2015. Some 9.5 billion liras of this amount was expected to be transferred to the Treasury’s accounts. 

Oyak Investment Chief Economist Mehmet Besimoğlu said the rise in budget income, mainly from the profit transfer by the Central Bank, played a significant role in the budget realization in April. 

“We have also seen that there was no significant hike in tax expenses in the mentioned period. We will continue to closely follow the budget over the rest of the year,” Besimoğlu said, as quoted by Reuters. 

He also noted that they do not foresee any shift in fiscal discipline over this year.

The surplus rose sharply in April, 4 billion liras higher than same month last year, when it was only 1.4 billion liras ($470 million).        

The primary surplus, which excludes interest payments, was 8 billion liras ($2.71 billion), up 500 million liras ($170 million) compared to 7.5 billion liras ($2.64) in the same period last year.    
   
“The results from in the first four months of the year show that our government continues to uphold fiscal discipline unwaveringly,” Ağbal said.        

“We will continue to uphold the principles of fiscal discipline for the rest of the year,” he added.      
 
According to official data from the Finance Ministry, the Turkish government budget, which ran a deficit of 4.1 billion liras ($1.39 billion) in the first four months of last year, saw a budget surplus of 5.4 billion liras ($1.83 billion) this April.