Budget expenditure for 2016 rose to 583.7 billion liras ($155.6 billion), marking 15.3 percent increase year-on-year. The amount was around one percent of the country's GDP, and 430 million Turkish liras ($114million) less than was forecast for 2016, Naci Agbal told a news conference.
2017 will be the savings year
Fiscal Minister Naci Agbal held a press conference on the central government budget realizations for the year 2016 in the ministry. Agbal continued, "2017 will be savings year. In 2017 we will go to significant savings both in personnel expenses and current expenditures. As the Ministry of Finance, there are measures that we put into practice." he said.
According to the ministry, Turkey’s government budget revenue reached 554.4 billion liras ($148 billion) in 2016, a 14.8 percent increase compared with 2015. The ministry had estimated budget expenses for the 2016 fiscal year at 570.5 billion liras ($188 billion), up by almost 10 percent compared to the 520.4 billion liras ($170.8 billion) in the forecast for 2015.
2017 WILL BE THE SAVING YEAR
Minister Ağbal said, "According to these realizations, the budget expenditure realization is realized as 13.2 billion TL and the budget revenues are realized as 13.6 billion TL more than the target. Thus, the budget deficit that we predicted as 29.7 billion lira at the beginning of the year, realized as 430 million lira of our initial target of 2016. There have been many negative developments during the year but we have reached the budget deficit target that we initially said in terms of the budgetary policy we have implemented, and even we have been under a certain amount."
Personnel expenditures rose 19 percent, reaching almost 149 billion Turkish liras ($39.6 billion) last year. Fiscal Minister Naci Agbal held a press conference on the central government budget realizations for the year 2016 in the ministry. Agbal continued, "2017 will be savings year. In 2017 we will go to significant savings both in personnel expenses and current expenditures. As the Ministry of Finance, there are measures that we put into practice." he said.