June budget gap widens

Bloomberg

The budget gap expanded to 2.5 billion Turkish Liras ($1.6 billion) from 1.5 billion liras in the same month last year, the Treasury in Ankara announced in an e-mailed statement Thursday. Excluding interest payments on debt, the budget produced a deficit of 1.5 billion liras, compared with a deficit of 1.6 billion liras a year earlier.

The government says a wider budget deficit this year is inevitable as it increases spending to preserve jobs in the face of an economic slowdown that’s eating into tax revenue.