CHP proposes 4-leg strategy for strong economy

ANKARA

Turkey has to adopt a four-leg strategy for a strong economy, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has suggested, citing life and property security, a production-based economy, a strong social state, and sustainability as the main pillars of the must-have strategy.

“We, as the CHP, believe that the Turkish economy can only be recovered through a strategy that has four vital items. We have the best teams and expertise to put the economy back on track,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu told his party’s Economy Desk meeting with the participation of local businessmen and entrepreneurs in Ankara on Nov. 11.

Kılıçdaroğlu said the economy was suffering from a lack of strategy and no economy in the world can grow without a clear road map nourished with wisdom and science.

The first and foremost item of the strategy should stipulate life and property security to all the Turkish people, investors and businessmen, Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“Everybody in this country should be assured that they won’t face any difficulty if they criticize the government. This is the basic principle for augmenting the investments,” he said, adding that CHP provides all the guarantees that this security will be fully pledged to all the Turkish people and investors when it comes to power.

The second leg of the strategy requires the transformation of the economy into a production-based nature in all the fields, including agriculture and industry, Kılıçdaroğlu noted.

“Yes, but what should we produce? How do we strategize the production-based economy that we need for well-crafted planning to this end?” he asked.

An economy needs to produce value-added products and that’s why it needs cooperation with the universities and scientists, he said, underlining the need to prevent the continued brain drain from Turkey to the developed countries.

“If most of the university graduates in Turkey want to live and work abroad, the only institution to blame is politics,” he said.

Turkey needs a strong social state in order to provide a fair distribution of the country’s national income, Kılıçdaroğlu outlined as the third leg. “That can only help us to provide societal peace. Our objective should be not to leave any citizen below the breadline,” he said, adding the CHP’s proposal of Family Insurance will resolve this problem.

To keep all these items function, the strategy needs to be sustainable and ready to address the changing conditions of the economy and the world, he said.

“Our planning should be for at least 20, 30, 40 or 50 years to come. We should be able to see where the world is heading and how Turkey will cope with it,” he added.