23 January 2019•Update: 23 January 2019
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
Turkey has been pursuing a strong debt management strategy for the past 16 years, the country's treasury and finance minister said on Wednesday.
Speaking at Emerging Markets Outlook session in the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Berat Albayrak said the Turkish economy has strengthened its immune system by overcoming all internal and regional problems over this period, including 2001 and 2008 economic crises.
"All these problems has taught us a very significant lesson: how to deal with a very challenging environment in a very strong way," Albayrak said.
“Turkey has become one and maybe only stable country in the region,” he added.
Responding to a question about Turkey’s economy, Albayrak mentioned comparative figures.
"Turkey’s public debt is around 28 percent [of the GDP], while the EM [emerging markets] average is 49 percent and the global average is 70-80 percent," Albayrak said. "Turkey is very low in that one."
"Household debt... It is around 16 percent, EM average is 36 percent and the global average is 60-70 percent, which means that Turkey has one of the lowest debt level in that sense as well.
"Considering all components [public, households, banking and non-banking sectors etc.] in Turkey's balance sheet, we have reached around 138 percent [debt/GDP ratio], EM average is 211 percent, global average is 318 percent," he said.
Speaking about Turkey-U.S. relations, the minister said that the two countries have a very strategic and significant cooperation both in the region and in the international arena.
"If we talk about the relations between countries and economies, this is not centralized with daily emotional approaches or tweets whatsoever[...]," Albayrak said.
Young, dynamic work force
On Jan. 14, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that the U.S. will devastate Turkey economically if Ankara hits the terror group amid Washington's withdrawal of troops from Syria.
Stressing the markets' calm reaction to the tweet, he said: "So the thing is, following that day, we have a very fruitful meeting with Mr. Trump," referring to a telephone contact between Erdogan and Trump.
Pointing Turkey's unique advantages for international investors, Albayrak noted that there are three main pillars.
"First, we have a young, dynamic and educated work force," he said, adding: "We does not only have a young work force, but also a very competitive and aggressive young middle-class which is very highly adapted to any specific challenges."
Albayrak said the Turkish government has been hugely investing on education since 2002, and ranked the Ministry of Education number one in terms of the share from the national budget.
"Secondly, we have a very competitive private sector, exporting more than 20,000 units of different products to whole around the world.
"We have increased the capacity of export from $35 billion to $170 billion [over the past 16 years]," he said.
Thirdly, Albayrak said, Turkey has made extremely large infrastructure investments in the fields of transportation, telecommunication, and energy over the same period.
The 49th annual meeting of WEF is organized under the main theme of "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution".
The forum is expected to be attended by representatives from over 100 governments, 1,000 global companies, and international organizations.
