Turkey's current defict narrows

Turkey posted a $5.2 billion current account deficit in November, amounting to a 13.2 percent drop as from the same period last year. On a 12-month basis, the current account deficit narrowed from $78.6 million to $77.8 million. The foreign trade deficit of Turkey also decreased by 4 percent to amount to $6.6 billion in November 2011. Furthermore, Turkey's tourism revenues increased by 13.2 percent as from the same period last year and reached $22.4 billion, whereas tourism expenses decreased to $4.4 billion in November 2011. Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan yesterday stated that direct investment into Turkey amounted to $12.1 billion in the first 11 months of 2011 as a result of an increase by 70 percent as from the same period last year with 86 percent of these figures coming from Europe. Caglayan stressed that Turkey enjoyed the best climate in terms of investments and that the government's new incentive system would constitute a mechanism to help further reduce the current account deficit.