By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's central government's budget balance saw a 5.9 billion Turkish liras ($772 million) surplus in January-April, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Monday.
The figure improved from a 72.8 billion Turkish lira (some $11.6 billion) deficit in the same period last year.
Turkey's budget revenues increased 36.4% year-on-year to 437.9 billion Turkish liras ($57.7 billion) in the first four months of 2021.
The country's budget expenditures totaled at 432 billion Turkish liras ($56.9 billion) from January to April, up 9.7% from a year ago.
The budget balance excluding interest payments posted a surplus of 73.4 billion Turkish liras ($9.7 billion) in January-April.
Tax revenues totaled 331.4 billion Turkish liras ($43.7 billion), while interest payments were 67.5 billion Turkish liras ($8.9 billion) in the same period.
One US dollar traded for 8.15 Turkish liras on average in April and 7.59 in the first four months of this year.
– Monthly figure
In April, the budget balance of the central government registered a deficit of 16.9 billion Turkish lira (some $2.1 billion), down from 43.2 billion Turkish liras ($6.3 billion) in the same month of last year.
The budget revenues was 93.8 billion Turkish liras ($11.5 billion) last month, jumping 44% on a yearly basis.
Turkey's budget expenditures increased 2.1% from last April to 110.7 billion Turkish liras ($13.6 billion) this April.
Excluding interest payments, the central government budget balance registered a 1.7 million Turkish liras ($204 million) surplus in April 2021.
