Finance and Treasury Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced that the country is moving into the third phase of its Medium Term Program.
Speaking at an event in Istanbul on Dec. 5, Şimşek explained that the program consists of three stages. The first phase focused on managing macroeconomic risks, establishing a rules-based market economy, controlling inflation and healing the wounds of the earthquake.
“The first phase was completed last year. The second phase is nearly finished. During this stage, inflation began to decline, we maintained fiscal discipline while addressing earthquake recovery, reduced the current account deficit, exited the FX-protected deposit scheme and achieved reserve accumulation,” he stressed.
“Starting next year, we will move into the third phase,” Şimşek said.
According to the minister, the third phase will consolidate gains, achieve single-digit inflation, permanently reduce the budget deficit to meet the Maastricht criteria and lower the current account deficit to below 1 percent of GDP.
Most importantly, he emphasized, reforms will accelerate to boost productivity and competitiveness.
Şimşek added that inflation had fallen to around 31 percent as of November. “We will likely end this year at that level, but our target for next year is to bring it below 20 percent,” he stated.
