The GDP growth for 2022 turned out to be higher than expected. According to the figures, Turkey reached its targeted GDP thanks to excessive consumption by the households in the last quarter.

Each month, Turkish Exporters’ Assembly announces the export data of the previous month, and the Turkish Statistical Institute shares the latest situation in foreign trade. As can be seen from the GDP figures, Turkey’s export performance has been suffering for a while now, which is also confirmed by TurkStat’s latest press statement.

It was already anticipated that the last year's growth figure would be slightly above 5%. However, I think this year’s growth figure will undergo some major revision.

Contrary to international institutions’ expectations of a 100-150 basis points cut, the CBRT has lowered rates by 50 basis points.

I would not have thought that I would say this, but, contrary to everyone's expectations, the Central Bank of Turkey made a rather modest decision about the interest rates, emphasizing, "You don’t need to impose your opinions on me! I will do what I know", in its careful determination. Including international institutions, no one has not fully understood what the Banks knows yet, but we are patiently waiting to find out.

Without going into further discussion about the rights and wrongs of the monetary policy that is in place in Turkey, let me tell you what’s on everyone’s mind: the CBRT will lower interest rates.

By popular demand, let me repost an article that I had shared with you last week. First of all, let's take a quick look at the probabilities in this scenario:

Dear friends, As if we don’t have enough problems already, now we have to deal with the disruptive consequences of the earthquake. Let’s take a quick look at these one by one:

It is not possible to bring back lost human lives. Overwhelmed by pain, we don't know exactly what to do about the rubble inside us as we plan to remove the actual rubble from the quake-stricken areas. There is serious confusion about the economic consequences of the earthquake damage. To address this confusion, I offer a brief analysis below, focusing on the following aspects of the earthquake’s economic impact.

After a nightmarish week, a new one begins. We thought that, with the declaration of national mourning and the state of emergency, things would progress more smoothly in the earthquake-affected areas of our country, however this was not exactly the case. It took quite a long time to restore order in the region.

I will not be able to write my daily reports for you for a few days since I will be doing my best to contribute to national disaster response and coordination efforts.

"...We were hit by an earthquake in the middle of the night last week. Earthquake has not been for a long time among the risks that we are currently facing or have recently faced such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Russo-Ukrainian War, and economic recession. In fact, the risk of an earthquake has always been there, but we had all forgotten about it.