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resulting in a tripling of the trade deficit to $2.15bn as exports remained flat.
While annual inflation has now officially dropped to 8.6% from a high of 25%, many Turks do not believe the figures. Unemployment is still on the rise and electricity bills have gone up 10-fold in the past year.
Turkey has in November been shocked by three apparent familial suicide pacts in quick succession blamed on rising poverty. November 15 brought news that a third economically distressed family had collectively committed suicide using cyanide.
A man, his wife and two children, aged five and nine, were found dead by police officers in their home in Antalya, southern Turkey. The unemployed father left a note saying he had been jobless for the past nine months and couldn’t go on, NTV reported on its website. “I apologize from everyone, but there’s nothing else to do. We are ending our lives,” the father’s suicide note read.
Back on November 5, four adult siblings were found dead in their Istanbul homes. These deaths also appear to have been the result of a collective suicide involving cyanide poisoning. State-run news service Anadolu Agency quoted a friend of the deceased as saying that they were suffering from chronic economic hardship.
The poverty threshold for a four-person household stands at Turkish lira (TRY) 6,705 ($1,162) per month, according to a monthly survey by the Turk-Is labour confederation cited by the news agency. That’s more than three times the monthly minimum wage of TRY2,020.
Turkey’s largely pro-Erdogan administration media have used up a good deal of column inches dismissing claims that the suicides can be linked to rising poverty.
Individual suicides, people on the roof of the Turkish parliament or those who set themselves alight and unpaid construction workers plunging from cranes are common occurrences nowadays that no longer carry any news value.
Leading Turkish apparel company Sarar plans layoffs as it struggles with higher costs, lower orders. Founded in 1944, Sarar operates 58 stores abroad and more than 160 stores in Turkey’s 75 provinces. It employs around 5,000 people. According to local media, the company will dispense with some 15-20% of its workforce. The letter to employees also noted that the company would not be able to make severance payments to sacked workers in one instalment; that manifests the depth of the company’s financial bottleneck. “Payments will be made in a total of six instalments,” it said.
Turkish airline Atlasjet on November 26 announced that it has suspended its flights until December 21, stating that the switching of its flights to Istanbul’s new mega airport has caused it cash flow problems. “With the transfer of flights to the new Istanbul airport from April 2019, there has been a sharp rise in logistics and operational costs, making it impossible to make up for our losses recorded in the 2016-17 period,” the statement said. The “fast and aggressive” depreciation of the Turkish lira was another factor in the company’s difficulties, Atlasjet said, as it brought lower demand for its flights in the second half of 2018.
The lira is down 8.5% against the dollar this year after losing nearly 30% last year, the year of Turkey’s balance of payments crisis.
Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest lender, has reported a 22.5% drop in third quarter net profit after taking a one-off impairment related to its
8 TURKEY Country Report December 2019 www.intellinews.com
