Turkey meets Maastricht debt criteria in 2018

ANKARA

Turkey achieved Maastricht criteria with its government accounts in 2018, according to data the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) released on Oct. 23.

The country’s general government deficit and consolidated debt stock stood at 2.8 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively, of its gross domestic product (GDP) last year, TÜİK said.

Maastricht criteria is calculated by candidate and member states of the EU and requires a maximum of 3 percent budgetary deficit and 60 percent debt stock to GDP ratio. The government posted 105.2 billion Turkish Liras (some $22 billion) of deficit, the difference between total income and expenditures, in 2018.

“Social security funds sector produced surplus in 2018 whereas other sectors ran deficit,” TÜİK said.

Total expenditures of general government was 1.3 trillion liras last year which corresponded to 35 percent of the country’s GDP.

The Treasury and Finance Ministry reported on Sept. 30 that the general government debt stock defined by the European Union amounted to 1.28 trillion liras.