Finance Minister Şimşek embarks on Gulf tour
ISTANBUL
Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has embarked on a new tour of Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in a drive to attract foreign investments.
Şimşek visited the Gulf nations earlier this year after he took the helm at the Turkish economy again following the May elections.
On Oct. 24, he first met with the UAE’s Investment Minister Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi in Abu Dhabi.
“We had a productive meeting,” Şimşek wrote on the social media platform X.
In his second stop in Qatar, he held talks with Finance Minister Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari.
Şimşek attended the "Türkiye Your Resilient Partner" program organized by the Turkish embassy in Qatar and the Turkish Presidency Investment Office within the scope of the “Türkiye Investment Century.”
“We explained the investment opportunities in our country to more than 200 investors and representatives of the financial world,” Şimşek said.
On Oct. 24, the minister was also set to attend the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Şimşek said on Oct. 23 tht oil production in the southeastern Gabar region will help reduce the current account deficit, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.
The minister noted that oil production in Gabar will meet 10 percent of Türkiye’s needs in 2024.
“Thus, the current account deficit will decrease permanently, and reserve accumulation will accelerate,” Şimşek wrote on X.
By 2026, total oil production will reach a level that will meet 18 percent of the country’s needs, he added.
In May this year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the discovery of oil reserves with a potential daily production capacity of 100,000 barrels in the Gabar region.
Türkiye’s current account deficit shrank to $619 million in August from $5.53 billion in July, data from the Central Bank showed earlier this month. In the first eight months of 2023, the current account gap was $43.1 billion against a deficit of $35.1 billion in the same period of 2022.
The 12-month trailing deficit climbed to $56.96 billion as of August from $33.5 billion a year ago.
In its latest medium-term program, the government forecasts that Türkiye’s current account deficit will decline from an estimated $42.5 billion this year to $34.7 billion in 2024. It expects the energy import bill to increase from $71 billion to $77.3 billion.
Meanwhile, the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) announced on Oct. 23 that the daily oil production at the Gabar field reached 25,000 barrels.
“Our goal is to increase the daily production to 35,0000 barrels from the Gabar project alone by the end of the year,” said Melih Han Bilgin, the general manager of TPAO.
TPAO aims to boost daily production at Gabar to 100,000 barrels at the end of 2024, according to Bilgin.