Central Bank announced the figures of balance of payments in May on Monday.

The current account balance posted a deficit of 37.2 billion USD in January-May period of 2011, indicating an increase of 20.4 billion USD over the same period of 2010.

The deficit was 16.8 billion USD in the first five months of 2010.

The current account balance posted a deficit of 2.9 billion USD in May, 2010, and 7.7 billion USD in May, 2011.

The rise in foreign trade deficit caused the current account deficit to increase.

Under services account, the travel revenues increased 21.3 percent to 6.1 billion USD and the travel expenditures increased 17.3 percent to 2 billion USD in comparison with the same period of the previous year.

The main sub-items under investment income, namely direct investment, portfolio investments and other investment consisting of the interest income and expenditures recorded a net outflow of 3.9 billion USD in the first five months, increasing from 2.8 billion USD observed during the same period of the previous year.

Non-residents; net direct investment in Turkey reached 5.6 billion USD in the first five months increasing 3 billion USD over the same period of 2010. Net real estate purchases of nonresidents in Turkey recorded 1.08 billion USD during this period.

Residents; net direct investment abroad recorded 1.2 billion USD in the first five months.

Non-residents; equity security transactions recorded net sales of 649 billion USD in the first five months of this year, including the net sales of 193 billion USD in May.

Non-residents realized net purchases of 9.4 billion USD of government securities in January-May 2011, despite of the net sales of 1.1 billion USD observed in May. They also recorded net purchases of 77 billion USD regarding the domestic securities of resident banks during the five-month period.

Banks; currency and deposit assets in the form of foreign exchange and Turkish Lira recorded a decrease of 1.3 billion USD in January-May 2011 as a result of 2.3 billion USD decrease in foreign exchange, in contrast to 998 billion increase in Turkish Lira. On the other hand, using the related trial accounts of the banks; branches abroad as a preliminary indicator, other sectors; deposit assets abroad recorded a decrease of 10.8 billion USD in the first five months.

As regards to loans, banks realized a net disbursement of 7.024 billion USD, increasing from 2.7 billion USD observed in the same period of the previous year. Other sector realized a net disbursement of 3.4 billion USD, in contrast to net repayment of 3.2 billion USD observed in the same period of the previous year.

Non-resident banks; foreign exchange deposits held within domestic banks increased 2.044 billion USD and Turkish Lira deposits posted a decrease of 5.6 billion USD.

Official reserves, a sub-item under reserve assets, recorded an increase 3 billion USD in May and 8.1 billion USD in the first five months of 2011.