Foreign loan burden on Turkish private sector slips

ANKARA

The Turkish private sector’s outstanding loans received from abroad continued to drop in October from end-2018, the country's Central Bank announced Monday.

The sector's long-term debts totaled $193.1 billion as of October, falling $16.3 billion from the end of December last year, the Central Bank of Turkey said in a statement.

It noted that 45.5% of the long-term debts in the month were held by financial institutions.

Some 60.8% of Turkey's private sector long-term debt was in U.S. dollars, with 33.7% in euros, 3.9% in Turkish liras, and 1.6% in other currencies.

The sector's short-term loans -- debt that must be paid in the next 12 months -- also slipped $4 billion to $11.4 billion in the same period.

Financial institutions held 73.4% of the short-term loans, while 26.6% consisted of liabilities of non-financial institutions.

"Regarding the currency composition of the total short-term loans, 52.0% consists of U.S. dollars, 29.1% consists of euros, 18.3% consists of Turkish liras and 0.6% consist of other currencies," it added.