New Turkish lira
From Freepedia
The new Turkish lira is the current currency of Turkey and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Introduced on January 1 2005, it is equivalent to 1,000,000 old Turkish lira (which will remain valid until the end of 2005) and divided into 100 new kuruş.
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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
Same banknote and coin designs are shared with the old Turkish Lira, to prevent any confusion.
All notes and coins show portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from different points of his life, and sights of various historical and otherwise important buildings and places in Turkey.
History
Owing to the chronic inflation experienced in Turkey from the 1970s through to the 1990s, the Turkish lira experienced severe depreciation in value. Turkey has had high inflation rates compared to developed countries but has never suffered hyperinflation. 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 2003, 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 (also revalued in July 2005) became 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 at a rate of 1000 to 1. The French franc was revalued by a factor of 100 in January 1960. The Finnish markka was also revalued by a factor of 100 in 1963. Argentina has had 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.
Current TRY exchange rates
AUD | CAD | EUR | GBP | INR | NZD | USD
External links
- Images of the new banknotes and coins
- New Turkish lira official changeover Campaign (Turkish and English)
- YTL information site (Turkish and English)
- Banknotes of Turkey
