Turkey: Private sector external loans fall in February

ANKARA

The Turkish private sector’s outstanding loans received from abroad slipped in February from the end of 2018, the Central Bank of Turkey announced Tuesday.

The sector's long-term debts reached to $209.5 billion as of February, down $763 million from the end of last year, the bank said in a statement.

Excluding trade credits, sector's short-term loans -- debt that must be paid in the next 12 months -- went down $2.3 billion to $13.1 billion during the same period.

Financial institutions constituted 72.9% of the short term loans, the report showed.

"As for the sectoral breakdown by the end of February, of the total long-term loans in the amount of $209.5 billion, 48.7% consists of liabilities of the financial institutions, whereas 51.3% consists of the liabilities of the non-financial institutions," it said.

Nearly 60 percent of Turkey's private sector long-term debt was in U.S. dollars, with 34.4 percent in euros, 4.4 percent in Turkish liras, and 1.4 percent in other currencies.