Turkey’s central government budget swung to a deficit in June on the back of increased spending on current transfers and personnel wages, Bloomberg reported.
The government ran a monthly fiscal deficit of 31.1 billion lira ($1.8 billion) last month, data from the Treasury and Finance Ministry showed on Monday. That compares with a record surplus of 144 billion lira in May, which had been driven by a surge in tax revenue.
Expenditures rose 87 percent to 212.1 billion lira in June from the same month a year earlier, while spending on wages rose 58.6 percent to 42.5 billion lira during the same period; current transfers, which include financial aid made to households, more than doubled to 107 billion lira. Meanwhile, revenues surged by 105 percent to 181 billion lira, with tax income contributing 152.6 billion lira.
Turkey’s January-June budget surplus was 94 billion lira.
