Public anger in Turkey over government’s false statements on economic crisis
Turkey’s official inflation rate soared to nearly 80% last month, the highest in 24 years, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unconventional economic policies continued to raise living costs, push the economy toward the abyss and create an unsolvable crisis, with annual prices increasing from 73.5% in May to 78.6% in June, according to the Turkish Statistical Agency.
Economy is crumbling
British newspaper, the Guardian, confirmed that opposition parties and economists believe that the recent increases in oil and gas prices mean that the real rate of inflation was almost double the official figure. These statements came as Minister of Treasury and Finance, Nureddin Nebati, tried to avoid criticism of the government’s handling of the economy, asserting that consumer prices will start to fall by the end of the year.
“I promise we will see a fall in inflation as of December,” he said after the government announced a second minimum wage increase in six months, from $254 to $328. Commenting on the crisis, the economists said: A monthly report issued by the Turkish group ENAG of independent economists revealed that consumer prices rose by 175% in June compared to the previous year. ENAG said that prices increased by 71.4% since the beginning of 2022. The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce said that inflation in Turkey’s largest city reached an annual rate of 94%.
False government
Timothy Ashe, economist at BlueBay Asset Management, said: “No one believes the official Turkish statements anymore, no one is expecting any response or improvement in the economy, and the government’s policy has become dishonest.”
Observers expect that the growing disagreement over the validity of the official Turkish statements is a difficult political issue for the Erdogan government before next year’s general elections, which is widely viewed as the hardest in its two-decade rule. Building on this crisis, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition party, accused the government’s statistics agency of “lying” and urged it in a tweet to “stop committing crimes for President Erdogan,” as a poll published by Metropol on Friday showed that 69% of respondents believe that the ENAG’s unofficial figure for inflation and the economic crisis is the real one, and confirmed that Turkey was hit hard by the 201010 European debt hike and threat 13. Its currency has since depreciated. In 2013, the lira was worth 36 pence, compared to 4.9 pence now. To stem the decline, Erdogan embarked on what he called a “new economic model” in 2018, which means setting aside rising inflation and lowering interest rates to boost economic growth.
