Turkey’s current-account deficit widened in December from a year earlier, posting a record shortfall for the second month in a row, the Central Bank said.
The deficit rose to $7.5 billion from $3.2 billion in the same month of 2009, the Central Bank in Ankara said on its website Friday. It was the widest gap since 1984 when the bank’s data series began and exceeded the median estimate of $7 billion in a Bloomberg survey of nine economists.
The shortfall is expanding as a growing economy pulls in imported goods, fuel and raw materials. At the same time, European demand for Turkish-made goods such as cars and washing machines is weak. The Central Bank has increased the money banks must set aside against consumer loans in the past two months to rein in demand and slow the widening of the deficit.
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