Turkey: Central Bank declares fall in exchange reserves

The gross foreign exchange reserves of the Turkish Central Bank had dropped to $82.3 billion as of Oct. 21, the bank announced yesterday.

The reserves were $85.8 billion on Oct. 14. The bank said total reserves decreased to $88.3 billion from $91.9 billion in June.

Gold constituted $6.064 billion of the total reserves.

The country repaid 564.21 million in foreign debt between Oct. 1 and 26, the bank added. According to the weekly data, total debt repaid by the Turkish Treasury alone was $441.15 million.

Since the beginning of the year, Turkey has made a foreign debt payment of $10.8 billion. Turkey repaid a total of $13.32 billion in foreign debt in 2010.

The banking sector’s credit volume, meanwhile, excluding participation banks, rose 3.3 billion liras in a week to 579 billion liras as of Oct. 14.

Consumer loans and credit card debts were down 792.5 million liras in a week to 209.3 billion liras as of Oct. 21, other data indicated.

Some 158.19 million liras of the total amount came from consumer loans while 51.1 billion liras stemmed from credit card debts.

Central Bank data also showed that home loans amounted to 68.6 billion liras, vehicle loans totaled 6.45 billion liras while other loans equaled 83.13 billion liras.

October 27, 2011
SOURCE: HURRIYET DAILY NEWS