External assets hit $234.2B in December 2018

Turkey's assets abroad reached $234.2 billion at the end of December, up 0.7 percent from the end of 2017, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) reported yesterday.

The country's liabilities against non-residents slipped 15.2 percent to hit $589.4 billion during the same period.

Thus, Turkey's net international investment position (NIIP) - the gap between its external assets and liabilities - totaled minus $355.2 billion as of Dec. 31, down from minus $462.6 billion at the end of the previous year.

NIIP is the value of overseas assets owned by a nation, minus the value of domestic assets owned by foreigners, including overseas assets and liabilities held by a nation's government, the private sector and its citizens.

Reserve assets were $93 billion at the end of last year, a 13.6 percent decline, while other investments came in at $89.1 billion, rising 16.7 percent in the same period. Currency and bank deposits, one of the sub-items of other investments, rose 27.7 percent to reach $44.6 billion.

On the liabilities side, direct investment - equity capital plus other capital - at the end of 2018 was $136.1 billion, dropping 31.2 percent from the end of 2017 "with the contribution of the changes in the market value and foreign exchange rates," the bank reported. The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira rate was around 4.90 last year, while in 2017 one dollar was exchanged for TL 3.65 on average.

Turkey's total external loan stock of lenders was $81.3 billion as of end-2018, down 14.3 percent from the end of 2017, the bank noted and added: "Total external loan stock of the other sectors recorded $106.7 billion, increasing 0.9 percent."