International macroeconomics

Travel receipts posted a remarkable 24.5% increase year-on-year in Greece in January and February, Bank of Greece data showed on Friday, helping moderate the country's current account deficit.

A decline in the current account deficit shows that the government's medium-term economic program is working, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

He noted that the deficit was lower than expectations in February and the gap declined by $5.8 billion compared with the same month of last year.

South Korea and Japan shared "serious concerns" on the recent weakness of their currencies against the dollar and agreed to take "appropriate actions" to counter extreme volatility, the finance ministry in Seoul said Wednesday.

Türkiye's current account deficit this year will be significantly lower than the initially forecast, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

The improvement in annualized foreign trade deficit continued in March, Şimşek wrote on the social media platform X on April 5, commenting on the latest trade data.

Amid a strengthening dollar fueled by robust U.S. economic indicators, the Japanese yen tumbled to its lowest level in 34 years. On Tuesday, the U.S. dollar surged to 151.97 yen, surpassing the previous multi-year peak set in October 2022. This surge has triggered concerns over Japan's currency stability, prompting Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to hint at potential intervention.

Türkiye's current account balance produced a deficit of $2.56 billion in January with the annualized gap continuing to shrink, data from the Central Bank has shown.

This was smaller than the $2.8 billion deficit most economists had predicted.

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has ruled out scenarios regarding the real depreciation of the Turkish Lira after the upcoming local elections.

"We do not have an exchange rate target. We are implementing a policy set which makes the lira attractive," Şimşek said in a televised interview on March 4.

Türkiye's current account deficit is likely to continue to decline in the months to come, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz has said.

Türkiye's current account deficit came in at $45.15 billion in 2023, shrinking from  $49.09 billion in the previous year, data from the Central Bank has shown.

In December alone, the current account deficit was $2.09 billion, declining from $2.77 billion in November. This was less than the $3.3 billion gap economists had expected for the month.

Higher growth in emerging markets (EM), including Türkiye, relative to developed markets and the prospect of U.S. Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year are expected to push emerging-market net capital flows to a decade high in 2024, Fitch Ratings has said in its latest Economics Dashboard.