The Minimum Wage Determination Commission held its second meeting yesterday. The Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (TURK-IS) Secretary-General Nazmi Irgat stated after the meeting that they demanded the minimum wage to not be below TRY 6,391, the hunger limit. President Erdogan is expected to announce the new minimum wage figure along with Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Bilgin, TURK-IS Chairman Ergun Atalay, and the Turkish Confederation of Employers’ Association (TISK) President Ozgur Burak Akkol in Istanbul today. Meanwhile, the regulation needed for the minimum wage hike to be valid by July 1 has been published in the Official Gazette.
The Central Bank has increased the commission rate applied for required reserves and notice foreign exchange (FX) deposit accounts from 1.5% to 5.0%. The bank also stated that it will calculate the value of securities when banks are granted securities for FX liabilities.
The purchase prices for wheat and barley have been increased by TRY 400 and TRY 200 per ton, respectively, according to a statement from the Turkish Grain Board (TMO).
Turkey’s benchmark stock index was at 2,40536 points at yesterday’s close, up 0.14%. Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index gained 3.40 points from Wednesday’s close of 2,401.96 points, with a daily trading volume of TRY 36.5bn. Analysts said 2,380 points and 2,340 points will be the support level and 2,480 points will be the resistance level for the BIST 100 index, in technical terms.
On the foreign policy side, U.S. President Joe Biden stated that the U.S. supports the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and that he is confident the congressional approval needed for the sale can be obtained, according to Reuters. Speaking at a news conference in Madrid at the end of a NATO summit, President Biden added: “I said back in December, as you’ll recall, we should sell them the F-16 jets and modernize those jets as well.” Biden also said it’s not in the U.S.’s interest not to do that.
Plans were submitted to export the Ukrainian grain stuck in Ukrainian ports at the 3-day NATO summit in Madrid, where historic decisions were made by the Alliance, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “20 vessels are in the region. We’ll deliver Ukrainian grain to third countries through re-export,” Erdogan said. The most important issue mentioned by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the summit’s closing speech was the Ukrainian grain. Stoltenberg said Turkey plays an important role in the resolution of this problem, which has paved the way for the global food crisis.
Turkey confirmed the country’s first case of the monkeypox virus yesterday. “Monkeypox was detected in one of our patients. The patient is 37 years old and has an immune deficiency,” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter. The patient is in isolation, and contact tracing has found no other cases, he added. The disease is transmitted not via respiratory droplets but through close physical contact.
DAILY AGENDA
The Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI) Turkey Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) dropped from 49.2 to 48.1 in June, compared to the previous month.
Meanwhile…
>> Foreign investors’ net equity and government debt securities outflows from Turkey totaled USD 98.4m and USD 57.7m, respectively, in the week ending on June 24, according to the Central Bank.
>> Residents’ FX deposit accounts surged by USD 769m in the week ending on June 24, compared to the previous week, according to parity-adjusted data from the Central Bank.
>> The Central Bank’s international net reserves increased by USD 150m to USD 7.53bn in the week ending on June 24, compared to the previous week.
>> The total amount in FX-protected TRY deposit accounts rose from TRY 992bn to TRY 1.01tr in the week ending on June 24, compared to the previous week, according to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK).
>> The loan volume of the banking sector rose by TRY 40.6bn to TRY 6.34tr in the week ending on June 24, compared to the previous week, according to BDDK. Total deposits by sector surged by TRY 26.8bn to TRY 7tr in this period.
>> Turkey’s gross external debt stock has totaled TRY 451.2bn, while the country’s net external debt stock has amounted to TRY 231.4bn as of March 31, according to the Treasury and Finance Ministry.
