Balance of payments

Türkiye has witnessed strong capital inflows in the past months and foreign reserves are no longer a concern, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said, adding that capital inflows could accelerate further after Türkiye was removed from the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) "gray list."

The market value of Türkiye's untapped gold reserves is estimated at $300 billion, according to Mehmet Yılmaz, the head of the Miners' Association of Türkiye (TMD).

The studies show that the country's gold reserve potential is around 6,500 tons, Yılmaz said.

Türkiye's current account posted a deficit of $5.29 billion in April, widening from the previous month's deficit of $4.4 billion.

In the same month of last year, the current account deficit was $5.09 billion.

Gold and energy excluded, the current account indicated a net deficit of $497 million, the Central Bank said on June 10.

The trade balance of agri-food products was in surplus in three of the last four years (2020, 2021 and 2023), a positive development, but not sufficient to change the sign from negative to positive in the overall trade balance.

The decline in the annual current account deficit, which has been continuing for eight months, is the success of the economic program, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

The annualized current account deficit declined by $25.8 billion in March compared with June 2023, Şimşek said, commenting on the latest balance of payments data the Central Bank unveiled on May 13.

The current account balance posted a deficit of $4.54 billion in March, narrowing from $5.25 billion in the same month of last year, data from the Central Bank has shown.

Analysts had expected the current account deficit to come in at less than $4 billion.

The 12-month rolling current account deficit eased from $31.94 billion in February to $31.2 billion in March.

A monthly quota introduced in August last year on unprocessed gold imports is helping reduce the current account deficit, the Treasury and Finance Ministry has said.

Under the current regulation, there is a monthly quota of 12 tons of unprocessed gold imports.

Travel receipts posted a remarkable 24.5% increase year-on-year in Greece in January and February, Bank of Greece data showed on Friday, helping moderate the country's current account deficit.

A decline in the current account deficit shows that the government's medium-term economic program is working, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

He noted that the deficit was lower than expectations in February and the gap declined by $5.8 billion compared with the same month of last year.

Türkiye's current account deficit this year will be significantly lower than the initially forecast, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

The improvement in annualized foreign trade deficit continued in March, Şimşek wrote on the social media platform X on April 5, commenting on the latest trade data.