Turkey’s president on Saturday blamed the country’s economic downturn on the United States and other nations that he claims are waging “war” against his country.
Speaking in the northeastern province of Rize, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that dollars, euros and gold were now “the bullets, cannonballs and missiles of the economic war being waged against our country.”
Erdogan promised supporters that Turkey was taking the necessary precautions to protect its economy but added “the most important thing is breaking the hands firing these weapons.”
Turkey was hit by a financial shockwave this week as its currency nosedived over concerns about the government’s economic policies and a trade dispute with the United States.
The lira tumbled 14 percent Friday, to 6.51 per dollar, a massive move for a currency that will make Turkish residents poorer and further erode international investors’ confidence in the country. The currency drop is particularly painful for Turkey because it finances a lot of its economic growth with foreign money.
The currency’s drop — 41 percent so far this year — is a gauge of fear over a country coming to terms with years of high debt, international concern over Erdogan’s push to amass power, and a souring in relations with allies like the U.S. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Turkish currency, the lira, hit a record low Monday after efforts by the country’s central bank to curb the drop by reducing the amount of foreign currency it holds in its reserves and their efforts to bolster the banking sector failed.
The currency has fallen nearly 30 percent this year already and is currently down 3.8 percent against the U.S. dollar, with $1 buying about 5.277 lira, according to The Wall Street Journal.
After months of decline, the lira fell 2.2 points on Sunday after policymakers in Turkey announced adjustments to the reserve policies of the central bank — CBRT — that were supposed to result in giving the banking sector $2.2 billion in liquidity.
The CBRT claimed it would do this by lowering the “upper limit for the FX maintenance facility within the reserve options mechanism” by 5 percentage points to 40 percent, per a statement on its website.
This helped temporarily, the Financial Times reported, but the lira continued to fall. – READ MORE
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