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ANKARA, April 14 (Reuters) - Turkey ran a budget deficit of 8.77 billion lira ($5.57 billion) in March, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday, compared with a deficit of 4.87 billion lira a year earlier.
The primary deficit, which excludes interest payments on government debt, stood at 4.32 billion lira in March compared with a deficit of 116.6 million lira in the same month last year.
Turkey on Monday revised up its budget deficit expectations for 2009 to 48 billion lira from a previous target of 10.4 billion lira as the global crisis hit the economy.
Turkey has instituted several tax cuts for a three month period on sectors such as white goods and automobiles in an attempt to stimulate the flagging economy.
The January to March budget deficit was 19.13 billion lira, while the primary deficit in the first three months was 1.04 billion lira, Finance Ministry data showed.
Economists said Turkey could end up running a primary deficit in 2009, after posting high primary surpluses for several years under IMF-backed programmes aimed to reduce its debt load and interest payments.