ANKARA (AA) - Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed nation on Wednesday.
Assessing developments in economy on television channels, Erdogan said, ''heavy crisis atmosphere over Turkey has ended. Inflation rates dropped to single digit numbers after 35 years. Turkey has become a country working hard to reach EU inflation standards, removed six zeros from its currency, gained stability in growth and won its economic esteem again. Budget deficits have started to shrink and high interest rates dropped to reasonable levels.''
''Domestic borrowing interest rate which was 70.6 percent in October 2002 decreased to 17 percent in the latest 3-year bond auction on January 17th, 2005,'' he added.
Erdogan noted, ''we hope to implement General Health Insurance in the middle of 2005. With this step, everybody in this country will be under a single insurance umbrella. The State will not exclude any of citizens from health services and there will not be any discrimination between the insured and uninsured.''
Regarding the earthquake-tsunami disaster in southern Asia, Erdogan said, ''south Asian countries are going through painful and difficult days. I will visit the region on February 5th, 2005 to contribute to meet the needs and heal the wounds as much as I can.''
Erdogan asked Turkish citizens to contribute to aid campaigns for southern Asia, recalling that Turkey had experienced similar pains in the past.
(GC-MS)
2005-01-26