The new Turkish lira is the current currency of Turkey and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, issued on January 1 2005. It is equivalent to 1 million old Turkish lira (which will remain valid until the end of 2005) and divisible into 100 new kuruş.

Currency specification

• Symbol: YTL (Yeni Türk Lirası), The ISO 4217 code of new Turkish lira is "TRY".
• Banknotes: 100, 50, 20, 10, 5 and 1 YTL
• Coins: 1 YTL and 50, 25, 10, 5, and 1 new kuruş

Design

All notes and coins show portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from different points of his life.

History

Owing to the chronic inflation (Turkey has had high inflation rates with respect to developed countries but has never been to hyperinflation) experienced in Turkey from the 1970s through to the 1990s, the Turkish lira experienced severe depreciation in value. From an average of 9 lira per U.S. dollar in the late 1960s, the currency came to trade at approximately 1.65 million lira per U.S. dollar in late 2001. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had called this problem a "national shame". In late December 2004, the Turkish Parliament passed a law which allows for the removal of six zeroes from the currency, and the creation of the new Turkish lira.

Conversion rates on January 1, 2005:

• USD 1.00 = TRL 1,325,700 = TRY 1.3257
• EUR 1.00 = TRL 1,798,179 = TRY 1.79818
• GBP 1.00 = TRL 2,563,061 = TRY 2.56306
• CAD 1.00 = TRL 1,114,653 = TRY 1.11465
• TRY 1.00 = USD 0.75432
• TRY 1.00 = EUR 0.55612
• TRY 1.00 = GBP 0.39040
• TRY 1.00 = CAD 0.89714

The introduction of the New Turkish lira has been accompanied by two new banknotes which did not have equivalents in the old system: TRY 100 and TRY 50.

With the revaluation of the old Turkish lira, the Romanian leu (to be revalued in July 2005) will become the world's least valued currency unit.

In the past, other countries have also revalued their currency. A similar case to the Turkish is the Peruvian nuevo sol ("new sun"), that replaced in 1991 one million inti ("sun" in Quechua); the inti itself had replaced the sol de oro ("golden sun") in 1985 in a 100-1 rate. The French franc was revalued by the same factor of 100 in January 1960. The Finnish markka was also revalued by a factor of 100 in 1963. Argentina has changed many different versions of its peso since the early 1970s. Currencies have also been revalued when pegged to a new standard or currency basket ; for example, India revalued the rupee from a system pegged to the pound sterling to a gold standard in 1966.

Replacement of old currency with new currency is done through central bank institutions.

External links

• Images of the new banknotes and coins
• New Turkish lira official changeover Campaign (Turkish and English)
• YTL information site (Turkish and English)