North’s 2024 ‘state’ budget to be set at €2.6bn

The north’s ‘state’ budget for 2024 will be set at just over 78.7 billion TL (€2.6bn), ‘finance minister’ Ozdemir Berova said on Tuesday.

Berova was speaking to public broadcaster BRT, and said he forecasts a total ‘government’ revenue of just over 71.9bn TL (€2.4bn), and that therefore there will be a total budget deficit of just under 6.8bn TL (€226 million).

The two main priority areas of the budget will be health and education, and that those sectors’ demands will be “evaluated with maximum sensitivity”, he added.

Meanwhile, with the €226m deficit in mind, he said he would take steps to reduce the budget deficit.

“First of all, there needs to be very strict budget discipline, and we need to take action and measures to increase income,” he said.

Measures touted include automation of the north’s taxation system and interconnectivity between the operating portals of the ‘labour ministry’ and the tax office. To this end, he said he has been “in close contact” with Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek with the aim of implementing an automated system.

Additionally, he said the revised law regarding gambling institutions in the north will also allow the ‘government’ to increase revenue, as would increased levies on bureaux de change and tightened regulations on insurance firms.

He added that “similar laws” would also help to increase revenue.

In addition, he said the Republic of Turkey would also send a total of 14bn TL (€467m) to the north in the form of grants and loans.

“The contribution of our motherland to us is also very important. Approximately 5bn TL (€166m) in loan aid has been forecast, 9bn TL (€301m) will come as a grant. This is an indication that important steps will be taken to complete our major investment projects, such as the [northern Nicosia] ring road and other related issues, next year,” he said.

However, he said two of the north’s ‘state’ institutions, namely the Soil Products Institution (Tuk) and the Eastern Mediterranean University (Emu), had “not been included numerically” in the budget.

He said that Tuk “had had budgets which did not pass [through ‘parliament’] in recent times”, and that this was the reason behind the Institution’s non-inclusion. He added that “hopefully, these budgets would be included in 2025.”

Regarding Emu, he said the university is “experiencing economic difficulties”. Last academic year, it ran at a budget deficit of 410m TL (€13.7m), while rector Aykut Hocanin resigned minutes before an emergency university administration meeting in September.

The budget will be submitted to the north’s cabinet in the coming days, before subsequently being debated in ‘parliament’.