Economists concerned about rise in US dollar after it exceeds 4 Turkish liras again
Due to concerns grown over trade wars in the world and global downturn wave in technology shares and recent geopolitical developments, the dollar has risen to 4.0 liras and the euro to 4.69 liras. On the last trading day of last week, the dollar had exceeded 4.0 liras for the first time in history and reached 4.0368 liras with the euro reaching a record level of 4.9757 liras. The dollar, which rose to 3.98 yesterday due to geopolitical developments as well as global developments, started to move on 4.0 liras after reaching 4.0 liras and 4.0012 liras with an increase of 0.45 percent in first trading hours of the day. Euro rose by 0.31 percent to 4.9643 liras.
On the other hand the Istanbul Stock Exchange Index which closed at TL 116 thousand 197 points with 0.19 percent decrease on Tuesday, fell back to 115 thousand 732 points with 0.40 per cent decrease.
It is very clear that the administration in power which has been trying to cope with many challenges in multiple areas such as terror, local political issues and deteriorated relations with the western block has to regard the issue of economy as the main and vital problem. Because, if citizens come to a worse point where they have further difficulty paying their bills at the end of the month and taking home food, this is when the current administration may have to hand over the power (they have been using for 15 years now) to opposition at the elections to be held in 2019.
To avoid such an undesired situation the administration has been seeking remedies to control/pull down the inflation which is closely linked to fluctuations in dollar TL rate, with not great success obviously. It is no secret that despite efforts by the administration considerable mistakes have been made to open way to negative developments in economy and unless the administration choses to practice a real democratic execution in the country, to quit “the pressure on freedom of speech and judiciary” (as cliamed by opposition and many other parties and citizens etc.) its relations with the western world will not recover, leading to less FDI coming in and lack of funds to run the finance system which is known to be troubled, already.
To recap, the government and the head of the state (rather) obviously have a very difficult choice to make. At the end of the day however there is no other choice except for loosening the iron grasp being used to govern the country and open way to enable prevailing of full democracy again as required by its western allies and “PARTNERS”. It is very clear that these lines are not only part an observation by the author of this article, but actually a requirement strongly voiced by “TOP” officials and institutions of Turkey’s partners in the western world.
