Turkey’s October Industrial Production and September Labour Force Data are to be released today, which will clearly show us whether the significant decline in third quarter will cause or not a negative growth in the fourth quarter. Any related data which have been overlooked by the analysts so far but considered “a must” in today’s analyses should be taken into account as well.
Retail prices are to be announced in Tuesday. Retrieved in October 2018, this data is quite important for the following reason: Turkish economy has faced a decline on monthly as well as annual basis in September. If a similar decline has taken place in October too, the possibility of a negative growth in the final quarter would become even more substantial.
I have previously posted the following comment on social media: “the aim of rate cuts is to save the fourth quarter”. I have noticed that this comment of mine received considerable support from highly experienced economists. And soon enough, with third-quarter GDP growth rate turning out to be 1.6%, the spot-on nature of this comment has been confirmed. I think I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that Ankara is giving its best efforts to avoid negative GDP growth in the final quarter.
“We better avoid a container crisis when trying to keep the imports volume down…”
On the other hand, the Fed can always ruin the plans. Some already consider 25 bps rate hike an accomplished fact. I can’t say they’re wrong. So, I think we should not expect a surprise. As each day passes, I become even more certain that 2019 will be a tough year for countries like Turkey.
We may face an increase in resource cost as well as troubles in exports because of global trade wars. It’s easy to say, “We’ll keep the import volume as low as possible while boosting exports”. It’s not an easy job to sell goods continuously without buying anything. Besides, how will we find the containers to put the exported goods in while imports are in decline? There are things to consider before making any move.
Given the fact that it’s not possible to send abroad empty containers, some sort of products, at least, should be placed in them. I must admit that I fear a container crisis might arise very soon.
