Turkey’s Treasury ministry is working on legislation to transfer the central bank’s 40 billion lira ($6.6 billion) in legal reserves to the government’s budget to shore it up, three economic officials told Reuters.

The budget deficit is deeper than expected, said the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly. It was unclear when or whether the draft law would reach parliament, though one of the sources said it would happen “soon”. If enacted, the transfer would mark the latest unorthodox attempt by President Tayyip Erdogan’s government to pull Turkey out of recession and steady the lira following last year’s currency crisis.

The lira has come under renewed pressure in the past two months partly due to investor worries over the central bank’s depleted foreign exchange reserves. These are separate to the “legal reserves” and help defend it against another crisis.

The “legal reserves” are what the central bank sets aside from profits by law to be used in extraordinary circumstances. At end-2018, they stood at 27.6 billion lira, according to the bank’s balance sheet data.

A second source with knowledge of the matter said last year’s “legal reserves” combined with this year’s amounted to the 40-billion lira figure, which was cited by all three people who spoke to Reuters.

“The Turkish central bank has around 40 billion lira in legal reserves. The transfer of this amount to the 2019 central administration budget was seen as suitable. This step aims at improving and strengthening the budget,” the second source said.

In response, the lira slid to its weakest level on Monday at 6.1175 against the dollar. The currency has all but erased gains from late last week when, in another unusual move, state banks sold billions of dollars to support the lira.

Reuters