ANKARA - Turkish economy had become stronger thanks to radical structural reforms, Turkish State Minister Ali Babacan said on Friday.
Responding to a motion presented by Mehmet Vedat Yucesan, a deputy of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Babacan said that Turkey had recorded high growth rates in the last two years, and this trend is still continuing.
Babacan went on to say, ''on the other hand, Turkey has almost eradicated inflation, one of the most important obstacles before economic development. Also, debt stock has dropped thanks to our firm finance and monetary policies. Public debt ratio to the Gross National Product (GNP) decreased by 20 percent in the last two years (period between the end of 2001 to the end of 2003). Macroeconomic performances recorded since the beginning of 2004 demonstrate that healthy course of Turkish economy continues.''
Turkish State Minister Babacan said that everybody had more confidence in economy and markets thanks to all these positive developments.
Babacan stated that they had started to work on the new economic program to be put into force in 2005 and said, ''we aim to implement an economic program which will meet Turkey's needs, which will focus on current problems of economy and especially on the social problems, which will take into consideration Turkey's realities, and which is based on compromise and dialogue and which will boost the confidence of investors.''
''Reducing inflation rate to a single-digit figure, enabling a sustainable growth rate, and decreasing the proportion of debt stock to GNP are priorities of our medium-term economic program. 2005 will be a year when structural reforms will be speeded up, direct foreign capital inflow will rise, and fight against poverty will be increased,'' Babacan said.
Recalling that Turkey had exceeded the primary surplus target for 2004, Babacan said, ''in this context, it can be seen that this performance is sustainable and our debts can be decreased to lower levels as foreseen, without making any concessions of our social policies.''
(BRC-ULG) 30.07.2004