Turkey's private sector foreign debt has risen by $12.5 billion in year-on-year terms to $277.4 billion since March 2014, the Treasury reported yesterday. Private sector foreign debt constituted 71 percent of the total foreign debt, the report said.In the first quarter of 2015, Turkey's gross external debt amounted to $392.8 billion, down by $6 billion from the first quarter of last year. The gross external debt comprises debts of government administrative bodies, monetary management agencies, banks, and other sectors of the economy.Nearly 71 percent of the total external debt comes from the private sector, increasing from 68.5 percent in March 2015 and up to $277.4 billion from $264.9 billion in the first quarter of last year. The share of public sector debt constituted 28.8 percent at $113.3 billion. The rest of the debt stock comprises external liabilities of the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey (CBRT) amounting to $2.1 billion.The sector's short-term foreign debt - the debt that must be paid in the next 12 months - also increased by $5 billion to $111.1 billion over the same period. The data indicated that financial institutions own more than half of the private sector's long-term debt. In short-term debt, the banking sector owns 70 percent of the total debt, amounting to $76.9 billion. The CBRT's long-term debt stood at $1.8 billion in the first quarter, while its short-term debt was $290 million.