Turkey's current deficit reaches $2.5 billion

Turkey's Central Bank (TCMB) disclosed balance of payments for January 2006. Accordingly, current account deficit reached $2.49 billion in January, up 69.9 percent from a year earlier. A major contributing factor to the current account deficit was once again Turkey's widening trade gap. The trade deficit rose 65.6 percent year on year to $2.6 billion in January. The increase in trade deficit is attributed to the export earnings, shuttle trade and import expenses. Export earnings fell 3.5 percent to $4.8 billion, shuttle trade decreased 1.5 percent to 203 million and import expenses, including gold, rose 11.1 percent to 8.1 billion. Current transfers amounted to $115 million, up 29.2 percent compared to the same period of last year. Employee pensions and official transfers amounted to $72 million and $43 million, respectively. Balance of services reported $338 million surplus by decreasing 25.4 percent compared to the same period of last year. The major contributing factors to this decline were the decline in net tourism earnings as well as financial services, other commercial services and official services.