Turkey's current account gap reaches nearly $5 billion in March

The current account deficit reached $4.96 billion in March, exceeding the estimated figure of $4.4 billion.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CRBT) has disclosed the balance of payment statistics for March 2015. Accordingly, the current account deficit was realized at $4.961 billion, marking an increase of $1.575 billion compared to the previous March. As a result, the 12-month current account deficit rose from $43.924 billion to $45.499 billion, because the foreign trade deficit in payments on the balance chart went up to $4.86 billion with an increase of $1.501 billion, net service income dropped to $1.075 billion with a decline of $47 million, and the primary revenue gap rose to $1.264 billion with an increase of $50 million. Among non-monetary gold items, net gold exports fell to $822 million, marking a decline of $427 million when compared to the same month last year.

Net inflows that stemmed from direct investments (net liability increase) decreased by $622 million compared to the same month the previous year and hit $280 million. The net outflow (net liability decrease) of portfolio investments was realized at $2.949 billion. As far as sub-items are concerned, non-residents carried out a net sale of $580 million in the stock-exchange market and carried out a net purchase of $444 million in the government debt securities market. Additionally, concerning bonds and bills issued abroad, the general government made a net repayment of $2.750 billion, while banks and other sectors made a net debt of $553 million and $107 million respectively.