Turkey’s Annual Current-Account Surplus Widens to 17-Year High

(Bloomberg) --

Turkey’s annual current-account surplus widened to highest level since January 2002 as weak consumer demand continued to curb imports.

The current account balance -- the broadest measure of trade and investment -- recorded a monthly surplus of $1.16 billion in July, bringing the 12-month rolling surplus to $4.45 billion, the central bank said on Friday. The median of nine estimates in a Bloomberg survey was for a monthly surplus of $1.3 billion.

Key Insights

• Friday’s data underscore the scale of the economic adjustment underway in Turkey following last year’s currency crash and aggressive monetary tightening that curbed domestic demand. The annual gap stood at $54.6 billion in the same period a year earlier.
• The adjustment was led by a narrowing of the trade deficit, which shrank by $2.42 billion from a year earlier to $2.52 billion.
• Official reserves rose by $3.16 billion, owing partly to capital inflows.
• Net errors and omissions, or capital movements of unknown origin, showed a monthly inflow of $603 million, taking the year-to-date inflows to $2.99 billion.

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• The government’s so-called medium-term program, which usually lists economic targets for the following three years, will be unveiled later this month, Treasury & Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said on Thursday. He predicted the annual balance would hit a record high this month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, ;Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Constantine Courcoulas, Cagan Koc

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