ANKARA - Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan said on Wednesday that there was no need to take any supplementary measure on the budget, and economic aggregates were positive.
Speaking to reporters at the parliament, Unakitan answered their questions.
When asked whether the economic situation was bad, Unakitan said that economic figures were very positive, adding, ''economy is a science of calculation. Interpretations should not be shown consideration.''
Noting that the primary budget target of 6.5 percent had been reached, and they would not allow occurrence of any problem about it, Unakitan said that the bills on social security agency (SSK) and social security agency for the self-employed (Bag-Kur) which were sought by the IMF for the fifth review would be adopted until July 9 when the IMF delegation would arrive in Turkey for discussions.
Stating that increase in salaries of public workers would not cause any problem, Unakitan said, ''you know the IMF had envisaged that 750 trillion lira would come through the tax peace but we collected 2.4 quadrillion lira. So we have a 1.7 quadrillion lira of secret reserve. We don't face any problem.''
(MS-AÖ) 02.07.2003