Cash budget deficit widens in August, show Treasury data

The Treasury's cash budget posted a deficit of 194 billion Turkish Liras ($5.7 billion) in August, higher than the deficit of 137 billion liras a month earlier.

In August last year, the cash budget ran a surplus of 62 billion liras.

Cash revenues amounted to 733 billion liras last month, down from 791 billion liras in July.

The Treasury said in a statement that the tax submissions and payment deadlines for the April period have been extended to Sept. 13. Therefore, tax collection will be included in the September cash budget data, it added.

Expenditures were 932 billion liras, with interest expenditures amounting to 91.3 billion liras. Non-interest expenditures amounted to 841 billion liras.

The cash budget's primary deficit widened from 47.9 billion liras in July to 108 billion liras in August.

In the first nine months of 2024, the cash budget ran a deficit of 632 billion liras.

Revenues and expenditures were 5.4 trillion liras and 6.8 trillion liras, respectively.

Interest expenditures amounted to 709.8 billion liras, while non-interest expenditures were 6.1 trillion liras.

Consequently, the primary deficit reached 631 billion liras in the January-August period.

In the updated medium-term program, released last week, the government forecast that the central government budget deficit will decline from an estimated 2.2 trillion liras (4.9 percent of GDP) in 2024 to 1.93 trillion liras (2.9 percent of GDP) in 2025.