Turkish President Erdoğan slams TÜSİAD chairwoman over economy remarks

SAKARYA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at a meeting in Sakarya. AA photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed the chairwoman of Turkey’s top business group over her recent remarks on the situation of the Turkish economy.

“I saw today in a newspaper that the new chair of a nongovernmental organization bringing together businesspeople, in an undreamed of way, interprets the steps taken by the current government as steps backwards,” Erdoğan said in a speech on April 11 in the northwestern province of Sakarya.

“They don’t know their place. They have no rationality. Their capitol has increased fivefold, and they are saying this because they are spoiled. Such NGOs should know that you cannot dynamite the peace and happiness of this country, or its unity,” he added.

Erdoğan’s remarks came one day after Cansen Başaran Symes, the chairwoman of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), criticized Turkey’s economic situation and the government’s lack of reforms.

“A number of new refreshing institutions, modern rules and an improving investment environment, all of which played a great role in writing the success story, have recently been replaced by negative conditions that challenge the success story. The EU membership target is now vague and the rule of law is weakening. A slower structural reform-making process is now the case,” Symes said at a conference in Istanbul.

She added that Turkey’s economic growth has been slowing down and there has been a decrease in the flow of investments.