Inflation will fall sharply next year: Erdoğan
ANKARA
Inflation will start to fall sharply early next year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, adding that the inflation rate will gradually ease down to 20 percent levels toward the end of 2023.
Inflation remains a major problem and poses a threat to all nations, he said, following a cabinet meeting on Sept. 5.
“Developed nations, in particular, have not yet been able to find a solution to inflation. Hopefully, we will see inflation start falling after the new year, dropping first to 40 percent and further down to 30 percent levels, and toward the end of the year, it will ease to around 20 percent. We want to rid our country of the inflation threat.”
The newly announced Medium-Term Program lays out a road map mainly for the fight against inflation, he added.
The Medium-Term Program, covering the 2023-2025 period, forecasts that the annual inflation rate in Türkiye will decline from 65 percent at the end of this year to 24.9 percent next year and further down to 9.9 percent in 2025.
The annual inflation rate accelerated from 79.6 percent in July to 80.2 percent in August, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reported this week.
The president added that the government intensified work to support low and medium-income groups during this period. “Many steps will be taken, such as increasing pensions and salaries of civil servants and widening the scope of social support programs.”
He also noted that debts under 2,000 Turkish Liras of 5.5 million people will be relieved.
“During the program horizon, we will implement a strategy which will boost the country’s development potential and prioritize value-added production that increases employment. We will continue to support exports by diversifying markets and products,” he said.
Erdoğan reiterated that the budget discipline will not be compromised and said that fiscal policies will be strengthened in order to reduce the public sector deficit.
‘$1 trillion economy’
“We aim to increase the GDP above $1 trillion in 2025. In fact, if we had not faced those attacks in the past eight to nine years, today we would be talking about a GDP of more than $1.5 trillion,” the president said.
Erdoğan hailed the latest growth data, which showed that the Turkish economy expanded 7.6 percent on an annual basis in the second quarter of 2022.
“This is not a success that happened by itself but an indication that we are moving forward on the path in line with the Türkiye Economy Model, which is based on growth through investments, production, export and generating current account surplus. This approach helped keep the wheels [of the economy] turning, maintained employment and increased exports during the pandemic,” Erdoğan said.
