Financial crises

Turkey's current account balance posted a $2.6 billion gap in February, increasing by $1.23 billion from the same month last year, the Turkish Central Bank announced on April 12. 

According to the balance of payments figures released by the bank, the country's 12-month rolling deficit totaled nearly $37.8 billion.

The Turkish central government's gross debt stock totaled 1.85 trillion Turkish liras (around $249 billion) at the end of February, according to new official figures.

The figure was up 32% from the same month last year, according to data from the Treasury and Finance Ministry on March 22. 

Turkey's short-term external debt stock - debt that must be paid in the next 12 months - reached $140.3 billion in January, according to official data on March 17. 

The figure climbed 1.3% from the end of 2020, data from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) showed.

The mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, declared on Monday that the debt of the capital as of this moment goes up to 2 billion RON, although when he took upon his 4-year term, the debt was 3 billion RON. "We have debts that result from court decisions: 430 million RON, of which Constanda - 375 million RON; Law School and colleges - 25 million RON.

Turkey's new regulation governing the interest-free funding market for housing and car sales took effect as it was published in the Official Gazette on March 7.

The Turkish Parliament approved the legislation last week, clearing the way for a possible boom in a system that has already drawn around 300,000 customers keen to avoid sky-high interest rates.

Turkey's annual inflation rate is projected to rise to 15.45% in February, an Anadolu Agency survey found on Feb. 26. 

Turkey's annual inflation rate in January was 14.97%, up 0.37 percentage points from the previous month.

The Turkish Statistical Institute will announce February's consumer prices index on March 3 Wednesday.

The Turkish Central Bank on Feb. 18 kept the policy rate unchanged at 17 percent, in line with market expectations.

The residential price index increased by 1.7 percent in December 2020 from the previous month, data from the Central Bank have shown.

On an annual basis, house prices across Turkey rose by 30.3 percent in the month in nominal terms, while in real terms, the increase was 13.7 percent, the bank said yesterday.

Greece has filed a request to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone's bailout fund, seeking its consent to pay back earlier expensive debt to the International Monetary Fund, government officials said on Wednesday.

The country has received three international bailouts from the eurozone and the IMF worth 280 billion euros since 2010.

Greece has raised 3.5 billion euros ($4.2 billion) at a record-low interest rate through a 10-year bond issue, the first of 2021.

Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said the yield at Wednesday's auction was 0.8%, while demand for the bond was "very high."