Tuzmen: The Thing That Is Important For Us Is To End Over Appreciation In Tl

ISTANBUL - State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said on Friday that it was important to end the over appreciation in Turkish Lira (TL).
Responding to questions of journalists after the news conference in which export figures were announced, Tuzmen said that over appreciation in TL was negative for domestic industry.
As Turkey adopted a development model based on export, exporters should be free to act in a normal environment, Tuzmen said.
Noting that nobody should be afraid of foreign trade deficit, Tuzmen said that ''the ratio of foreign trade deficit to total foreign trade is important. If this ratio is around 20 percent, this is not very dangerous. We ended the year with a foreign trade deficit of 20 billion dollars. This amount is not much in 115 billion dollars of foreign trade. For the moment, I don't consider the foreign trade deficit as a dangerous one. It is a healthy sign for a developing economy like that of Turkey. The thing that matters is to keep the ratio of exports meeting imports around 70 percent.''
Turkey Exporters Assembly Chairman Oguz Satici said in his part that economy administration was an integrity and they would continue to question and warn any institution including Central Bank if that institution's policy was wrong or if that institution tried to act separately from the integrity.
(Öª-AÖ) 02.01.2004