ISTANBUL: The Turkish central bank's net international reserves rose to $20.91 billion as of June 25 from $18.46 billion a week earlier, data showed on Thursday.

The exchange rate used by Reuters on Thursday was 8.6593.

The reserves have emerged this year as a focus of what the political opposition calls government mismanagement. They plunged in 2019-2020 as state banks sold off $128 billion to stabilise the lira, which still fell 20% in 2020.

Net forex reserves were around $41 billion at the end of 2019.

The central bank used swaps with local banks to backstop the FX interventions, an unorthodox policy that spooked foreign investors and raised the risk of a balance of payments crisis, analysts said.

Data showed the bank's outstanding swap transactions stood at $44.689 billion as of Wednesday. The reserves are in deeply negative territory once the swaps are deducted.