Turkish economy: Timely reporting and analysis of economic developments in Turkey with all its structural problems, as one of world’s 20 biggest economies
As I sat down to write this article around noontime on June 22, Halkbank shares seemed to have started off the week with a 6.5{4a62a0b61d095f9fa64ff0aeb2e5f07472fcd403e64dbe9b2a0b309ae33c1dfd} increase. This increase had even reached 8.5{4a62a0b61d095f9fa64ff0aeb2e5f07472fcd403e64dbe9b2a0b309ae33c1dfd} in the morning, sometime after the opening of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. “It’s a big increase for a bank,” said a friend of
The Presidential Decree No. 62, which was signed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan on May 16 and published in the Official Gazette on Sunday, May 17, consisted of a single sentence. The decree stipulated that, those who are appointed to the Bank Council of the Central Bank could keep their teaching posts in the universities,
The restrictions implemented to fight with Covid-19 and its virus are slowly being eased. There will be many changes we will need to adopt to in this new world waiting for us. I want to discuss here the return of foreign investment to Turkey, because I believe some of the economic policy decisions taken to
Emerging markets’ currencies depreciate rapidly during times of crisis. This is because the risk appetite declines during crisis and emerging markets experience capital outflows. Those with macroeconomic imbalances are affected the most.Because Turkey was far from achieving price stability when COVID-19 crisis hit, it is experiencing more problems on the currency front. The rate cuts
When I started compiling information to write this article, 1 US dollar was 7.24 Turkish lira level. As I was writing these lines, the dollar had increased to the level of 7.25 liras. When Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak was brought to office by President Tayyip Erdogan, who is also his father-in-law, on June
Prominent U.S. think tank, the Atlantic Council, held a remarkable video conference on April 30, looking into Turkey’s relations with the U.S. as well as its economic trajectory. The meeting was striking because of two main reasons. The Turkish government wanted to be among the countries benefiting from the convenient SWAP option to ease the
In the inflation report that came on April 30, Turkish Central Bank (CBRT) revised its inflation forecast for 2020 from 8.2 percent to 7.4 percent. The forecast for 2021 is kept constant at 5.4 percent.How realistic is this revision? In the short run, the downfall in demand and the fall in oil prices may dominate
The Covid-19 pandemic has a growing negative impact on economies all around the world. In an earlier study, we estimated the possible output and employment effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. Our predictions, based on an analysis using the 2012 IO table and the 2017 output and employment data, suggested that the non-agricultural labor
COVID-19 has quickly become a global pandemic. The virus does not travel, but people do. And the virus is spread through contact with contagious people. Therefore, many governments resort to social distancing measures and some apply regional lockdowns. However, a significant slow-down of economic and social activities all around the world causes significant hardship for