Turkey's cultural expenses rise in 2018: Official data

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s cultural expenditures rose by 23.4% to reach 54.38 billion Turkish liras ($11.28 billion) in 2018, according to official figures released on Tuesday.

The ratio of cultural expenses in the country’s GDP was 1.5% last year, up from 1.4% in 2018, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

“The 64.3% of the expenditures were the general government cultural expenditures and 35.7% were the private cultural expenditures,” the institute noted.

It added that general government’s cultural expenditures increased by 23.4% in the year to 34.95 billion Turkish liras ($7.25 billion), versus 2017.

In the same period, households’ cultural spendings also saw a

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