The Central Bank of Turkey says that a sharp reduction in short-term debt and a weak dollar largely accounted for a 2.6 per cent nominal decrease in the total external debt stock to $65,601 million at the end of 1994.

Short-term debt decreased partly because banks refrained from fresh borrowing or rollovers of loans maturing from 1993, when their borrowing boomed to capitalise on an overvalued lira and high domestic interest rates. The share of short-term debt in the overall stock fell by about 10 percentage points to 17.2 per cent at $11,310 million, as against a similar percentage point increase of medium and long-term debt to 82.8 per cent at $54,291 million.

The dollar's decline mainly accounted for an underlying $4,032 million shift raising the profile of other currencies, chiefly the Deutschmark and yen, in the total stock. At constant, end-1993 exchange rates, the overall decline would have been $6,065 million, according to central bank figures.