According to the “Balance of payments developments in January-November 2009” report by the Central Bank of Turkey released on Monday, the more than three-fold increase in the current account balance in November is mainly attributable to the 89.9 percent increase in foreign trade deficits in the same period, reaching $2.42 million. Meanwhile the current account deficit in the January-November period decreased from $38.79 million in 2008 to $9.92 million in 2009. During the same period, the foreign trade deficit decreased by 58.7 percent to $20.8 million.
In the first 11 months of 2009, travel revenue decreased by 4 percent to $20.15 million, while travel expenditures increased by 14.2 percent to $3.61 million compared with the same period of 2008, giving net travel revenue of $16.54 million, which is 7.2 percent less than net travel revenue in the same period of previous year. Transportation, another important service, recorded a net inflow of $1.14 million between January and November 2009, while it had a deficit of $22 million in the same period of 2008. Revenues from construction abroad by Turkish construction companies increased by 3.4 percent to $903 million in January-November 2009 compared to the same period of 2008. In total, services generated a surplus of $16.065 million in the first 11 months of 2009. This figure was $16.86 million in the same period of 2008.
The income account consisting of compensation of employees and investment income recorded a net outflow of $7 million in the January-November 2009 period, reflecting 3.5 percent decrease over the same period of 2008. The two main sub-items under investment income, namely direct investment mainly consisting of profit transfers and other investments consisting of interest income and expenditures, recorded a net outflow of $2.17 million with an 11.1 percent decrease and $4.99 million with a 12.9 percent decrease, respectively, whereas portfolio investments recorded a net inflow of $254 million with a 74.2 percent decrease in January-November 2009. The interest expenditures of long and short-term loans also decreased by 13.2 percent to $6.57 million between January and November in 2009.
