ISTANBUL
Timothy Ash was the first international economist to support Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's reaction to S&P's decision to revise Turkey's rating as stable from positive.
Ash said Erdogan was right, and S&P's rating was wrong, and noted that Turkey was a country that was robust and had a high repayment power.
S&P said Tuesday it cut outlook on Turkey's long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings to stable from positive due to "less-buoyant external demand and worsening terms of trade [which] could inhibit Turkey's economic rebalancing."
Definitely, Turkey deserved a better rating, Ash said.
Ash said Turkey was fulfilling its liabilities and trying to solve its main problems, which should be taken into consideration by the international rating organization.
Turkey had fulfilled its liabilities after the economic crisis of 2001 even despite many claimed scenarios, Ash said.
Ash said international markets considered Turkey as an investable country. There should be something wrong, either markets or rating organizations were wrong, he also said.
Known for his researches on Turkey since 1999, Ash said markets had not taken this unjust rating into consideration, and Turkey deserved a better rating with its repayment power and financial structure.
Ash said Turkey's rating should have been two-three degrees over this current rating, adding that Turkey had already deserved investable country rating.
On Thursday, Premier Erdogan rubbished S&P over its revision of outlook on Turkey, and said, "this is totally an ideological decision. No one would buy that. And we shall declare that we do not recognize you any more as a credit rating agency. This is absolute nonsense even as you upgrade [ratings on] Greece which still teeters on the edge of bankruptcy."
(Reporting by Gokhan Kurtaran)
