Why are inflationary expectations rising now? One reason is the rapid depreciation of the Turkish Lira in 2021. The currency lost 83 percent of its value between January 2021 and January 2022. In early January of 2018, you could get $53 with your 200 lira banknote, the largest lira-denominated banknote in Turkey. In early January 2021, you got $27 for it, and now it is worth $15. Needless to say, this causes a lot of inflation.
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If President Erdoğan sticks to his highly controversial “interest is the cause and inflation is the reason” dictum, the bottom has fallen out. Just look at how negative the real rate of return on lira could be. Today, the CBRT policy rate was at 14 percent while CPI at the end of 2021 reached 49 percent. Monetary expansion is leading to higher and higher inflation. None of the economics here is very complicated.
Yet this time around, Turks have the freedom to hold retail FX deposit accounts, something that was not available to them in the 1970s. For the first time since 2001, the share of FX deposit accounts in total commercial bank deposits once again went over 68 percent in 2021, higher than it was in 2001 crisis. Despite the seeming policy reversal, this figure is still at record levels.
The policy reversal came in early December with the change of the economy minister. It started with the introduction of a dollar indexed lira deposit account and a so-called ‘managed float’ of the currency. Is there any chance of success here? No. CBRT neither has enough reserves to credibly manage the float nor the ability to raise its policy rate. The president is insisting on his false premises.
Could FX-indexed lira deposit accounts change Turkish appetites for holding US dollars over Turkish lira? No. It’s not about the lira, it’s about the credibility of the current economic policy framework, which does not exist. What we have is a series of tactics to give the vague impression of an economic policy. It is all about dealing with the symptoms, not focusing on the cause.
Turkey has lost its policymaking capacity since 2018
It’s all directly related to the new decision-making mechanism of the Presidential system that came into effect with the 2018 elections.
Turkey abolished its policymaking capacity with the administrative “reform” at that time. How? In the past, undersecretaries with their deputies were the gate keepers acting as the brain trust in ministries. Policymaking in the Turkish administrative system was performed at the under-secretariat level, with ministers coming and going depending on election results.
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The 2018 administrative “reform” has abolished under-secretariats by either demoting the existing undersecretaries and deputy undersecretaries or pushed them to passive jobs outside of their ministries, effectively attempting to wipe out the memory of Turkish bureaucracy. Without alternative policy formulation mechanisms established, policy analysis and policymaking have become effectively impossible in Turkey. The presidential system becomes an arrangement for one man to sign all the papers.
Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows turned negative for the first time since 2001
No wonder the risk Premium on Turkish assets has already been high and rising since the administrative “reform” of 2018. The cost of funding for the Turkish economy is quickly rising. Turkey is a country with a structural savings shortage, as exemplified by current account deficits. A jobs and growth agenda in Turkey requires higher foreign savings to be wired into the country.
It is not only the Credit Default Swap (CDS) risk premiums that are rising, but there is also a rapid decline in net FDI inflows into Turkey. Note that for the first time since the 2001 crisis, foreign direct inflows into Turkey, the net of real estate investments and outward direct investments has once again turned negative. The figures indicate the importance of the rule of law, as well as perceptions regarding the independence of the judiciary. The erosion is significant since 2018.
Do not waste the energy of Turkish entrepreneurs
Against all odds, it’s the dynamism of the Turkish corporate sector that makes the country continue to work wonders. Turkey had a Southeast Asian post-pandemic recovery process with the 2021 growth rate reaching somewhere around 10 percent. Turkish exports went beyond the $200 billion mark for the first time. Turkish exports increased around 20 percent between June 2019 to June 2020 while that of China has increased by more than 30 percent.
There is a cost to all this: after two decades, the incidence of poverty in Turkey is rising once again. This trend emerged in 2019, a year after the administrative “reform”.
Think about Turkey’s potential if it had a comprehensive and coherent economic policy framework. The Green New Deal is a great opportunity for Turkey to have a strong economic policy framework commensurate with its trading partners. As 60 percent of Turkish exports are going to G7 countries, any substantial policy change among them requires Turkey to adjust. Now that the country has finally ratified the Paris Agreement and announced 2053 as its net zero year, it needs an ambitious economic policy framework. Why? Green transformation is a capital-intensive economic transformation in a country with a structural savings deficit. Is it doable? Yes, but it won’t be easy.
For job creation and growth, the Turkish economy requires real administrative reform to reestablish a policy unit within the administration. It will then need policies to lower CDS risk premiums, which is essential to a capital-intensive economic transformation process. Only then can Turkey find its way back to normality.
Güven Sak holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from the Middle East Technical University and M.A. degree from University of East Anglia. He worked as a senior researcher at the Capital Markets Board of Turkey, as a faculty member of the Department of Public Finance at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara University and as an external founding member of the Monetary Policy Council of the Central Bank of Turkey. He became Professor of Public Economics in 2003. In 2006, he was transferred to the newly established TOBB University of Economics and Technology. He was the founding Managing Director of the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) in 2004 which is the first and only economic policy think tank in Turkey. Güven Sak writes on economic issues for Dünya, and Hürriyet Daily News. He is currently Director of Area Studies Program at TEPAV and President/CEO of TEPAV Global, Washington, DC, USA.