I am currently in China at the invitation of Huawei and today I will share with you my impressions so far. As soon as you land at the airport, you see China's incredible dynamism. Everyone is going somewhere but they do not seem to be in a rush. As in every developing market, the rules are strict yet their implementation is confusing, which means they can be flexible if desired.

Central Banks have started to increase rates as of last week. The excitement and the stress gradually grow every day. The first central bank to hike rates was the ECB by 25 basis points, according to which, deposit rate in the EU climbed to 4%, policy rate to 4.50% and overnight funding rate to 4.75%. The economists, however, were expecting that the ECB would keep rates intact. This decision caused the euro to dollar exchange rate to go down sharply.

The ECB will release its rate decision tomorrow, the Fed on the 20th of September, and the CBRT on the 21st of September. Expectations, on the other hand, are not turning positive due to the currently unsolvable high inflation and rising loan rates, hence growth concerns.

An old friend of mine learned this expression from his high school teacher who used to say it when his students would give short and incomplete answers in oral exams. Lately, people have been asking me "Are things getting better?”, which apparently indicates that expectations in society that the economy will ameliorate are going up. Just like that teacher who never could get a full answer to the questions he asked yet kept his hope high that his students will improve.

Turkey’s fight against high inflation will hurt many people in the process, of course, except for certain groups or individuals who always make profit, no matter what the economic conditions are.

Dear friends, First of all, there are two facts that we all must see. - Raising interest rates does not guarantee a lower inflation rate. - Reduce interest rates does not guarantee growth either.

What is Türkiye’s most important brand right now? The Sultans of the Net without a doubt. Our players achieved incredible success despite the problems in the country that increase the cost of doing sports. Here in Türkiye, we open one sports facility after another while levying one import tax after another to make the price of sports footwear even more expensive. But when did all this begin?

Amidst the excitement and question marks created by the BRICS summit, the world once again recognises that the next biggest global megatrend is 5G.

Earlier this month, the Central Bank issued a communique regarding the KKM. Let’s see what has happened so far since then. - The legislative draft, designed by the CBRT to encourage banks to gradually terminate the KKM deposit scheme, did not achieve the intended goal as expected. - So, the bank wanted to accelerate the transition from the KKM to TRY deposits by raising the policy rates. .

Obviously not. You can use tactics to prevent the opposition from scoring goals, but wise governments always base their strategy on winning. Defence, offence and scoring goals, you have to have well thought-out plans and strategies for each of them. The CBRT, for instance, plays defence for our economy.

We do not get surprised at anything anymore, but the decision of the CBRT was indeed a surprise for everyone. I believe that economists will be able to evaluate the political situation as long as they are concerned about what everyone will do, instead of wondering what to do with the CBRT rate decisions.

Finally realising that it’s useless to put pressure on banks to push their depositors to close their KKM accounts and return to regular deposits, the Central Bank decided to take some responsibility and it took interest rates to significantly high levels, leaving the banks to decide whether or not they should do the same increase.