Speaking at a press conference in Ankara on Thursday, Şimşek said Turkey’s budget deficit amounted to TL 15.4 billion in the January-June period of the year. The minister said this figure accounted for 30.7 percent of the government’s budget deficit target for 2010. “This shows that we are doing well in closing the gap in our budget so far this year,” the minister explained.
Şimşek said the primary surplus amounted to TL 12 billion in the first half of the year, compared to TL 4 billion in the same period of 2009. The minister also said that Turkey’s budget revenues had increased by 19.1 percent in the first six months over the same period of the previous year, while expenditures from budget coffers climbed 9.3 percent, to TL 136.5 billion.
Noting that they expect a slowdown in an ongoing recovery in global markets in the second half of the year, the minister said Turkey would also be affected by such a trend. “A strong recovery in the Turkish economy could be replaced by stagnation in the second half of the year in line with global markets. … However, it would not be wrong to say that Turkey is well poised to sustain relatively less damage from the anticipated course of negative developments outside the country,” he said.
Asked whether the government planned any tax hikes to cover the anticipated slowdown in the economy, the minister said they are not considering taking such a step. Şimşek asserted that the government places much importance on sticking to its mid-term economic program.
