Turkey’s current account had a deficit of $3.11 billion in August. The annual current account deficit increased from 36.7 billion dollars to 40.9 billion dollars. In August, there was an inflow of 4 billion dollars of uncertain origin.
According to Central Bank data; The current account, which had a surplus of 1 billion 75 million dollars in August of the previous year, recorded a deficit of 3 billion 112 million dollars this month. As a result, the twelve-month current account deficit increased to 40 billion 889 million dollars. The foreign trade deficit defined in the balance of payments increased by 6 billion 816 million dollars compared to the same month of the previous year and rose to 9 billion 700 million dollars.
Core deficit gave $6.3 billion surplus
Current account, excluding gold and energy, gave a surplus of 6 billion 276 million dollars.
Services balance, sourced inflows increased by 2 billion 515 million dollars compared to the same month of the previous year and rose to 7 billion 236 million dollars. Under this item, net revenues arising from the travel item increased by 1 billion 432 million dollars and reached 5 billion 132 million dollars.
Outflows from primary income balance decreased by $152 million to $685 million in August. Net inflows arising from the secondary income balance item decreased by 38 million dollars compared to the same month of the previous year and reached 37 million dollars.
$ 812 million portfolio entry
Net inflows from direct investments were recorded as $573 million. Portfolio investments showed a net inflow of $812 million. When analyzed by sub-items, it is seen that non-residents made a net purchase of 761 million dollars in the stock market and a net sale of 6 million dollars in the government domestic debt securities market.
Regarding bond issuances abroad, banks realized a net use of $28 million.
Under other investments, the effective and deposit assets of domestic banks in their foreign correspondents decreased by 1 billion 750 million dollars.
A net increase of 10 billion 786 million dollars was observed in official reserves this month.
$4 billion ‘mysterious’ money
In the face of the recent increase, the money inflow of uncertain origin (net errors and omissions), which economists pointed out, was 4 billion dollars in August. Net errors and omissions broke a record in the January-August period with an inflow of 28.3 billion dollars.
The evaluation made by Info Investment is as follows: Our expectation is that there will be a slowdown in the current account deficit after the strong tourism season and the expectation of an increase in foreign currency in circulation. On the other hand, the need for financing from the increasing current account deficit is increasing, and the growth of the budget deficit increases our risks. We can talk about a different focus if the amount of global production based in China and the amount of direct investment in Turkey increase due to supply chain problems. However, we should point out that in a scenario where economic activity does not slow down, there is a risk that the 12-month current account deficit will exceed 50 billion dollars. In the last published OVP, the year-end forecast was stated as -47.3 billion dollars deficit.