TurkStat: Government expenditures on culture decreased in 2019

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In 2019, the total cultural expenditures in Turkey increased while the government's expenditures on culture decreased, according to a report released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Total cultural expenditures were 56.95 Turkish lira with an increase of 4.7 percent compared to 2018.

The ratio of total cultural expenditures in the gross domestic product was 1.3 percent.

Nearly 60 percent of the cultural expenditures were made by the government and 40.2 percent were private cultural expenditures. Government expenditures on culture decreased in a year by 2.5 percent to 34.66 billion lira.

71.7 percent of the expenditures were made from the central government budget and 28.3 percent from the local government budget.

When government expenditures on culture were distributed according to cultural areas, the shares were as follows; architecture 28.5 percent, books and press 12.3 percent, performing arts 10.3 percent, audiovisual and multimedia 9.7 percent, cultural heritage 6.0 percent, natural heritage 5.2 percent.

Household expenditures

The distribution of household expenditure on culture was as follows; television and TV equipment 21.9 percent, books 13.9 percent, stationery and drawing materials 11.4 percent, wired/private TV broadcasting service charges 10.8 percent, data processing equipment 10.4 percent, and cinema, theater and concert 6.2 percent.

While total turnover of enterprises in cultural sectors increased by 11.4 percent in 2019 compared to 2018 and became 84.22 billion, the number of persons employed decreased by 3.9 percent to 256,129. The highest number of cultural enterprises was in "Retail sale of newspapers and stationery in specialized stores" with 17.3 percent.

Value added at factor costs of cultural enterprises increased by 8.5 percent in 2019 compared to 2018 and became 15.80 billion lira. 22.0 percent of value added was produced by printing and reproduction of recorded media, 14.0 percent by motion picture, video and television program productions, sound recording and music publishing activities and 9.8 percent by architectural activities.

Imports and exports

Cultural goods exports increased by 26.5 percent in 2019 compared to 2018. While the increase rate was 26.4 percent in main goods exports, it was 29.7 percent in secondary goods exports. The share of cultural goods exports in total goods exports was 4.2 percent in 2019. Considering the cultural areas, the total export of handicrafts, which have the highest share, was 33.10 billion lira. The share of handicrafts in total exports of cultural goods was 76.9 percent.

Cultural goods imports increased by 29.6 percent in 2019 compared to 2018. The increase rate was 61.4 percent in main goods imports and 10.3 percent in secondary goods imports. The share of imports of cultural goods in total imports of goods was 2.5 percent in 2019. According to cultural areas, the total imports of visual and audio media were 11.63 billion lira in 2019. The share of audiovisual media in total imports of cultural goods was 39.6 percent. (HA/VK)