The week starts with new appointments. The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) President Prof. Sait Erdal Dincer, who recently made statements to daily DUNYA, was surprisingly replaced by Erhan Cetinkaya, former vice chairman of the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK). Assoc. Prof. Ibrahim Demir, meanwhile, was appointed the Vice President of TurkStat.
“With inflation, I am responsible for 84 million people. If I make a mistake, I will be unfair to them. Millions of employees get pay raises according to the inflation we announce. Now, it’s almost like playing with the income of those people, which is unfair. It isn’t possible for me to do this, to take on such a responsibility,” Dincer said in his latest interview with daily DUNYA about the disputes about inflation figures released by the institution.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also appointed Bekir Bozdag as Turkey’s new justice minister after accepting (former) Minister Abdulhamit Gul’s request to step down.
Looking at the data to be released this week, the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and temporary foreign trade data will be announced on Tuesday morning. There may be an unexpected decline in PMI due to natural gas and power outages. Production slowed down or stopped in many fields, especially in the glass, ceramics, automotive, dairy, and food sectors. We will see to what extent this will be reflected in the PMI data. On the other hand, the PMI index, which is one of the critical indicators of industrial production and growth, closed 2021 at 52,1. The index has been hovering above 50 for 7 months in a row.
Inflation, which will be announced on Thursday morning, will be the most critical data of the week. Consumer inflation, which reached 36% in December, saw its highest level since 2002 fall. The January data will certainly be higher than this, especially due to the price hikes in electricity, natural gas, fuel, cigarettes, and alcohol products. Therefore, we expect the highest January inflation data since 2002. Estimates are showing that the annual CPI increase will be around 50%.
DAILY AGENDA
Tourism revenues jumped 103% to USD 24.48bn in 2021, compared to the previous year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). Tourism revenues surged by 95% to USD 7.63bn in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to the same period of the previous year.
Turkey’s exports rose by 24.9% to USD 22.27bn and imports increased by 29.9% to USD 29.07bn in December 2021, year-on-year, according to TurkStat. The country’s exports climbed by 32.8% to USD 225.29bn and imports surged by 23.6% to USD 271.42bn in January-December 2021, compared to the same period of the previous year.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism will announce foreign visitors figures for December 2021.
The Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency will announce collective data of the banking sector for 2021 (2.00 pm).
The Central Bank will release monthly money and banking statistics for December 2021 (2.30 pm).
IN OUR MAGAZINE THIS WEEK:
>> On the cover: Sinem Sandikci Gokcen, the Country Manager of the France-based multinational cosmetics company L’Oréal is on our cover this week. The global cosmetics group appointed a Turkish country manager last September first time in its 35-year history in the market. Sinem Sandikci Gokcen, who has 22 years of experience at the company, is also the first women country manager of L’Oréal Turkey. This is part of the company’s glocalization strategy they have been developing for the past ten years, according to Gokcen, who says that local managers are much more sensitive to the social needs of specific countries, which differ from each other despite globalization. You can read the details on pages 8-9.
>> Professor Ilter Turan: Russian-Ukrainian conflict: difficult choices for Turkey. P. 10.
>> Q&A: Mesut Serhat Dinc, General Manager of YK Enerji. P. 11.
>> Our Chief Economist Gunduz Findikcioglu analyses ‘Economic games and elections’ in Turkey. You can read the details on pages 12-13.
>> Our Foreign Policy Columnist Zeynep Gurcanli looks at what may happen if NATO sends troops to Ukraine on page 14.
