Turkey's short-term external debt stock at $118B

By Tuba Sahin</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's short-term external debt stock — debt that must be paid in the next 12 months — reached to $118 billion at the end of January, the Turkish Central Bank said on Friday.</p> <p>The figure was up 1.5 percent compared to the end of last year when the debt was some $116.3 billion, the bank said in a statement.</p> <p>Nearly half the country's short-term external debt stock was in dollars — 48.9 percent — followed by 29.6 percent in euros, 16.1 percent in Turkish liras, and 5.4 percent in other currencies.</p> <p>&quot;In this period, banks’ short-term external debt stock increased by 1.4 percent to $57.7 billion and other sectors’ short-term external debt stock increased by 1.7 percent to $54.4 billion,&quot; it said.</p> <p>The short-term debt of public sector — mainly composed of public banks — rose 8.7 percent from the end of 2018 to hit $24.4 billion in January. </p> <p>Private sector's short-term foreign debt fell by 0.3 percent to $87.6 billion during the same period.