Turkey close to signing $1B currency swap deal with Azerbaijan
Banknotes of different currencies, including euro, U.S. dollar, Turkish lira or Brazilian reais, are photographed in Frankfurt, Germany, May 7, 2017. (Reuters Photo)


Turkey’s central bank is close to signing a 1 billion euro ($1.14B) currency swap deal with Azerbaijani counterpart in the coming weeks, sources said Thursday.

In parallel with the earlier reports, sources in Baku confirmed the size of the deal to Daily Sabah.

Turkey has made several swap agreements recently to bolster its hard currency reserves with the latest sealed on Wednesday with United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) inked a swap agreement with a nominal size of 18 billion UAE dirhams and TL 64 billion ($4.7 billion) with its Emirati counterpart.

The central bank has swap deals with China, Qatar and South Korea worth about $23 billion (TL 260.66 billion). They encourage trade in local currencies and boost the central bank's gross reserves.

Turkey had also previously sought deals with central banks in the United States, Britain, Russia and Malaysia, Reuters has reported.

In an attempt to slow the crash in the national currency, the central bank last year announced five direct market interventions that bankers say totaled $10 billion before unveiling a lira protection scheme.