I obviously cannot deny that there’s unrest in global markets, the “Trade Wars” fuelled by Trump are negatively affecting the monetary and capital markets, recent events in Syria are creating social unrest and a potential US intervention is causing tensions to further escalate in the region.
However, I cannot deny one thing either: Despite some recent positive developments, unfortunately, Turkey stands out negatively among its counterparts, which is becoming more and more apparent. Things are not going well in Brazil either. Russian stock markets are negatively affected by Russia-US tensions. There’s still unrest in South Africa. However, national currency of none of these countries has not depreciated as much as TRY.
Almost for 10 years now, I’ve been telling that Turkey must implement a new economic model that generates high value added. This is not rocket science! But, I tried to explain in the best way possible I can that goods whose value per kilogram remains below 1 USD must be decreased in number in total volume of exports. All the experts who have appeared on television yesterday, when USD/TRY almost hit 4, 07, they all said the same thing: “Turkey must adopt a new economic model that generates high added-value.”
“It’s time to offer new things…”
I always knew that people were going to see the truth sooner or later. To this day, I had to fight those arguing, “This is not Silicon Valley! Your projects are doomed to fail in Turkey!” I never understood this approach of theirs: Creating pretexts for supporting labour-intensive sector by raising concerns about the outdated technology zones.
I have something to say to the business world as well: You should have said, “I export higher value added products. Help me become stronger against foreign competitors”, instead of praising yourself for employing thousands of workers or trying to get a political advantage from your situation.
We may accomplish our goals if we work hard by always bearing in mind Atatürk’s following words: “Personal interests often conflict with national interests. But they also improve competitiveness. However, if we let the system gets dominated by this approach; the powerful would crash the weak. Therefore, Governments must take on the role of regulator with in total respect to market rules.”
