Why are we late on being local and domestic?
When I saw the pictures of long queues in front of shops of luxury brands, I asked myself, “Who benefits from all of this?”
I bet the representatives of these brands have earned good revenue this week. However, their costs in the import sector are all in foreign currency.
How can they make money from now on? How will their businesses continue? Who will buy with these prices? The price of a bag that used to be 8,000 Turkish Liras will rise to 12,000 liras.
What if Chanel was a Turkish brand? What if Louis Vuitton was a brand created by Lale Vatman?
Actually, the fakes of these brands are being manufactured in Turkey for as little as peanuts. Even if Coco Chanel were to rise from her grave and come and check, she would not see a difference in quality!
There is talk about using local products nowadays. I am not sure how I will manage when even lentils are being imported.
We have to take a break from construction and start creating international brands in all sectors! This is a must.
Local and domestic in the construction sector
Talking about the construction sector, when United States President Donald Trump said they would double steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, I was overcome by curiosity as an ordinary citizen who is not familiar with the issue.
If we are exporting iron and steel, why has the input cost of the construction sector been increasing? Why has the construction industry been mourning about the increase in the value of dollar?
Apparently, we have been exporting imported iron scrap, which we have been processing in different plants at a very low profit margin. In other words, the scrap iron was being brought from abroad with dollars. We do have iron metal in Turkey but we cannot process it all. Apparently, there are only three plants that are active. Setting up new plants requires a lot of capital. Perhaps this requires a government investment. There are also some other metals that continue to lie under the soil as well.
Now, I am no expert but iron and steel affects 90-95 sectors in the country and is also the most costly imported input of the construction sector, which has become the main locomotive of the economy. Why have they not become local and domestic until now? The state has been spending lots of money on many unnecessary things. Can we not invest in extracting iron metal and processing it and thereby secure the construction sector at least and turn it into a fully “domestic production.”
Not that I am fond of the construction sector. I wish we could have chosen another sector for development. But if this was seen as the appropriate sector to focus on, we could have at least thought about using local inputs.
In the meantime, the agricultural sector, which we once used to be self-sufficient in terms of sowing and reaping the crops we consume, has also become dependent on foreign countries. I am not even talking about how our animal feed is imported and our kebabs are made with Russian meat, as Russian President Vladimir Putin had asked.
I may not like the construction sector but I am fond of eating meat. Are we going to be deprived of folic acid if the ruble is to gain value? Ohh noooo!
