TRNC Finance Minister Zeren Mungan, has said that North Cyprus’ debt to Turkey is 7.5 billion US dollars, not including donations, ‘Kibris Gazetesi’ reports.
He said that the internal loans from banks reached 3.5 billion Turkish liras (TL) and that TRNC guaranteed loans which have reached one billion TL.
Referring to the country’s debt to Turkey, Mungan said that no demand has been submitted until now regarding this repayment and added: “Reducing Turkey’s aid is not a target. The target is to reduce its contribution to the current expenses. The contribution to the current budget, which was 285 million TL last year, has been reduced to 216 million TL with a decrease of about 70 million TL. If the budget discipline is preserved, we will meet our current budget ourselves within five years. And this clearly means that no aid will be asked from Turkey for paying the salaries”.
The minister said that this year the 13th month salary will be paid without drawing an advance payment from next year’s budget, as they have been doing for years. He further noted that his ministry is paying all its debts on time.
