BY HUSEYIN GOKCE Elections on May 14 will be organized in a different atmosphere in 11 provinces hit by twin quakes on February 6. There are nearly 9.2 million voters in these cities. However, around 1.4 million were estimated to migrate to other provinces after the earthquake. Around 15% of voters in the quake-hit region...
Category: FOCUS
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Hunger limit doesn’t fit in wallets; new banknote is needed
BY TALIP AKTAS The hunger limit, which totaled TRY 735 in January 2009 when current banknotes started circulating, reached TRY 9,425 in February. It was enough to have four TRY 200 banknotes in the wallet. It’s impossible to fit in the current hunger limit as there is no wallet where 47 TRY 200 banknotes can...
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Mortality statistics rise by tenfold due to COVID-19
BY MEHMET KAYA The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) started to release the death statistics which stopped during the COVID-19 period. The crude mortality rate per 1,000 people, which stood at 5.3 in 2019, rose to 6.1 in the pandemic year of 2020 and increased to 6.7 in 2021, according to TurkStat. The figure hovered around...
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Account owners head toward KKM again
BY ALAATTIN AKTAS Savers started to rapidly close their FXprotected TRY deposit accounts (KKM) after FX rates hadn’t increased for months and the interest rate cap had fallen to 12% following the policy rate cut to 9%. The total amount in KKM dropped by TRY 48bn in the last week of December and TRY 45bn...
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Happy anniversary to the big FX operation!
BY ALAATTIN AKTAS The Central Bank’s (CB) policy rate, which had been kept steady for five months after it was increased to 19% in March, was cut starting on September 23, 2021. The policy rate was cut from 15% to 14% on December 16 and fell below inflation. When people started to buy up foreign...
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Disengagement from agriculture feeds food inflation
BY TALIP AKTAS Turkey, which is the 10th largest agricultural producer in the world, ranks fourth in terms of the highest food inflation after Zimbabwe, Lebanon, and Venezuela, according to the FAO’s (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) Food Price Index. The share of agriculture in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased from 10.2%...
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86% of stocks are held by 3.6% of investors
BY TALIP AKTAS Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 Index jumped 180% from 1,800 points to 5,000 points in 12 months. The return is good for a period when the deposit interest rate (IR) rose by 27%, bond IR increased by 10-11%, pressured USD/TRY surged by 50%, and gold climbed by 35% compared to TurkStat’s inflation of...
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Tourism is CAD lifeline, but investment is poor
BY ISMET OZKUL Investments rose by 7.4% while public investments increased by 2.56% and private sector investments surged by 7.95% in 2021, according to the data from the Strategy and Budget Presidency. Despite the overall growth, public investments declined in the transportation, housing, energy, manufacturing, health, and tourism industries. The mining sector topped with the...
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Globally high food inflation
BY TALIP AKTAS Turkey, the 10th largest agricultural economy in the world, was among the top five countries with the highest food inflation in November, according to the World Bank. Turkey rose from fifth place to fourth place in October, and its ranking didn’t change in November, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of...
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Revision reduced CAD and net E&O
BY ALAATTIN AKTAS The revision in travel revenues announced by TurkStat was reflected in the balance of payments data from the the Central Bank (CB), dating back to 2012. The current account deficit (CAD) declined by USD 26.71bn from 2012 to August 2022, but the figure was USD 26.79bn in the CB’s revision statement. The...