Turkey's Finance Ministry reports January budget

Turkey’s Finance Ministry reports January budget

Turkey's budget posted a deficit of TRY 1.006 billion (around $740 million) and a primary surplus of TRY 4.2 billion (around $3.1 billion) in January 2005 as a portion of December 2004's receipts were carried over to January due to the value added tax (VAT) reduction in 2005. Turkey's Ministry of Finance indicated that both the VAT reduction in various goods and the increase in the tax on motor vehicles contributed to the monthly tax revenues. Nearly TRY 2.48 billion of the revenues are from non-tax revenues. Of this amount, around TRY 1.1 billion consists of interest revenues, which were not incorporated in the IMF-defined primary surplus since all interest revenues and payments are not taken into account. Therefore, the IMF defined January's primary surplus as TRY 2.9 billion.