Turkey’s Central Bank has said that its net profit last year was 18.38 billion Turkish Liras ($5.04 billion), soaring by over 92.5 percent from 9.55 billion liras ($3.15 billion) in 2016.
The Central Bank’s total assets last year were 636.97 billion liras ($174.5 billion), including gold, foreign currencies, securities and loans, it said in a statement.
Gold reserves at the bank were 564.65 tons by the end of last year, worth 88.78 billion liras ($24.32 billion).
Most of the bank’s profit is expected to be transferred to its main shareholder, the Undersecretariat of Treasury.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s crude steel production jumped 8.7 percent to nearly three million tons in February, compared with the same month in 2017, according to the World Steel Association.
International total crude steel production, comprising 64 countries, was 131.8 million tons in February, up 3.5 percent from 127.3 million tons during February 2017, the association said in a report.
China produced more than half of the world’s crude steel, with 64.9 million tons in the month. Its production rose 5.9 percent in February compared with the same month last year.
India and Japan came next with over eight million tons, the US followed with 6.4 million tons and then South Korea with 5.4 million tons.
Among EU states, Germany had the highest crude steel production at 3.3 million tons.
The crude steel capacity utilization ratio of countries in February was 73.3 percent, up 1.8 percentage points from February 2017.
The World Steel Association members represent nearly 85 percent of the world’s steel production.
Turkey’s production in February 2017 was 2.76 million tons, the report showed.
