Chief advisor to Turkey’s President says sales of state owned Turk Telekom was a mistake
Cemil ERTEM, one of key advisors to Turkey’s President used following expression in a statement he made in an interview on a TV channel: We said “Let’s sell our values/assets such as Turk Telekom at any cost. We should not repeat these mistakes, the solution is public offering.”
Chief Advisor to the President Cemil Ertem stated that he was against sales or handover of Turkey’s strategic companies. He said that such establishments should be offered to the public instead of being sold as a block, and this should have been the model to use right from the beginning. He added in same interview that sales of Turk Telekom had been realized with bad timing.
The chief advisor also reiterated his statement emphasizing the interest rates should fall.
Ertem said, “The first thing we need to do is to lower the interest rates, which will help the banking system as well. The government will do what it takes, but the banking system has to take that step in this direction.”
Commenting that there is a possibility for the interest rates to fall within the market conditions, Ertem used the expressions “When we do this we will have taken very important steps in terms of the current account deficit as well as inflation”.
