New budget prioritizes cost of living

ANKARA

The priorities of the government’s 2024 budget are investments in the earthquake-hit provinces and the fight against the high cost of living, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz has said.

"While we continue our fight against inflation, we will not stop implementing the necessary policies to compensate for the difficulties caused by the cost of living,” Yılmaz said at a press conference on the budget on Oct. 17.

“As we have done before, in an environment of confidence and stability, we will bring inflation back to single digits and increase the purchasing power of our people through rational steps."

The government’s priorities will be “to better rebuild our earthquake-ravaged cities and reduce disaster risks for the future” and “contribute to the objective of achieving macro-financial and price stability within an approach based on fiscal discipline and strengthening the coordination of fiscal and monetary policies,” the vice president noted.

“Despite the slowdown in global economic activity and the impact of the February earthquake, we expect the economy to grow by 4.4 percent in 2023,” Yılmaz said.

“In 2024, we expect our economy to grow by 4 percent, with a more balanced composition of demand and a positive differentiation from other countries by ensuring a decline in inflation.”

The government aims to exceed the previous year's export performance in 2023 with exports of more than $255 billion, and targets $267 billion in exports next year.

“To this end, we will continue to strengthen our export support, take steps to diversify export markets, and actively pursue our efforts in line with new trends in global trade,” Yılmaz noted.

“With the positive performance of our tourism sector, we expect our travel receipts to reach $49 billion by the end of 2023 and $52.5 billion in 2024 if the upward momentum continues, setting new records.”

The government is determined to decrease inflation to single digits, Yılmaz said.

“While the global inflation problem persists in many advanced and emerging economies, we are determined to take transparent and credible policy measures to fight inflation in a timely manner, and to maintain this stance until we achieve sustained low single-digit inflation,” he said.

“While we continue our fight against inflation, we will not stop implementing the necessary policies to compensate for the difficulties caused by the cost of living. As we have done before, in an environment of confidence and stability, we will bring inflation back to single digits and increase the purchasing power of our people through rational measures.”

According to the budget proposal for 2024, total expenditures are estimated to be 11.09 trillion Turkish Liras ($420 billion) and budget revenues are estimated to be 8.4 trillion liras ($300 billion). The ratio of budget deficit to gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to be 6.4 percent.

A total of 1.28 trillion liras ($46 billion), around 2.5 percent of the GDP, has been allocated to quickly repair the damage caused by the earthquake and meet the needs of citizens living in the earthquake zone.