Page 20 - TURKRptDec21

2.8 Business and consumer confidence surveys
Medicine shortages: Since the August 2018 lira crash, medicine shortages at the end of each year have become a regular feature of life in Turkey. This is because the exchange rate to be used for drug prices are set at the beginning of each year and drug companies do not want to sell medicines before the new exchange rate is set with the lira depreciating so sharply.
Turkey’s diabetes-related spending amounted to $9.4bn in 2021. The number of diabetic patients aged between 20 and 79 rose to more than 9mn from 1.8mn in 2000. The number of people in Turkey with undiagnosed diabetes stands at an estimated 3.8mn.
Turkish comedian Cem Yilmaz put some new NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) up for sale at a price of 0.25 Ethereum ($1,025) each. In October, Yilmaz sold his first NFTs. One was sold at 6 Ethereum while the other two were sold at 0.53 Ethereum and 0.5 Ethereum. Since October, he has sold many more.
Greeks, Bulgarians and Iranians, cheered by the collapse of the Turkish lira, are heading to Turkey for shopping.
The collapse of the lira has hit Turkmen labour migrants whose families in Turkmenistan heavily rely on remittances.
Revenues of shopping centres in Turkey grew by 10% over two days as consumers brought forward purchases in anticipation of higher prices to come following the collapse of the lira.
At least six people were killed and 52 were injured after extreme wind storms swept through Turkey on November 29 and 30.
20 TURKEY Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com