By Gokhan Ergocun
ANKARA (AA) – The Turkish Treasury's cash balance saw a deficit of 19.75 billion Turkish liras ($5.17 billion) in the first quarter of 2018, the Treasury Undersecretariat announced on Friday.
The Treasury received 171.03 billion Turkish liras ($44.8 billion) in cash revenue in the first three months of this year, while expenditures stood at 190.98 billion Turkish liras ($50.02 billion).
Over the same period, the Treasury's non-interest expenditures totaled 169.56 billion Turkish liras ($44.42 billion) — a 1.46 billion lira ($383,55 million) surplus in the primary balance.
Interest payments were 21.42 billion Turkish liras ($5.61 billion), the top contributor to the Treasury's cash balance deficit in the same period.
The Treasury collected 205 million Turkish liras ($53.7 million) revenues from privatization or fund income — including transfers by the Turkish Privatization Administration, 4.5G license payments, land sale revenues, etc. — in the same period.
The cash balance — a $5.17 billion deficit — represents the Treasury's cash revenues plus privatization and fund income minus expenditures, including interest payments, in the first three months of 2018.
Last year, the Treasury's cash balance was a deficit of 60.4 billion Turkish liras ($16.5 billion). Twelve-month revenue was 636.6 billion Turkish liras ($174.5 billion), while expenditures in 2017 — including interest payments — totaled over 697 billion Turkish liras ($191 billion).
The three-month average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate this year was around 3.82, while last year one dollar traded for 3.65 liras on average.
