Page 82 - TURKRptDec19

The source of the story was Yukarisirt mukhtar (village head) Serif Yildirim. “We have heard from the workers that this region has huge gas reserve potential. Our land and field prices have soared since the news,” he reportedly told hacks on November 20.
Suleyman Berk, a real estate expert in Muratli, reportedly weighed in, stressing that the value of the land in the area had surged 40%.
This is a perfect win-win and many more wins all round. The government is happy as it will solve economic problems, Norway’s Equinor and Canada’s Valeura are happy with their gas discovery, the villagers are buoyed by the rising land prices and any buyers of plots will be chuffed to sit on natural gas sources, and so on.
Some “professional optimists” have started asking whether the government’s plans for growing the Turkish economy at 5% next year, without a current account deficit, may turn on some expectations for a gas discovery in the Eastern Mediterranean (whether its on Turkish or Greek Cypriot territory is a wee matter we can leave till another time).
Pre-election gas fever​. Interestingly, claims of gas discoveries in Turkey generally occur prior to elections.
On November 20, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) became the first political party in this electoral cycle to call for early elections, while some officials from the Iyi (Good) Party, on the Turkish nationalist side of the political scales, offered a coalition to Erdogan with the primary precondition that parliamentary elections be held within 2020.
Will Erdogan cling on in the fashion of his Venezuelan bestie Nicholas Maduro or is he destined to be overthrown in a snap poll? Turkey’s next elections are not scheduled to take place until 2023 but since the strongman was forced to take the humiliating Istanbul revote loss on the chin in June, there have been plenty of bets about that he can’t wait that long to try and reassert his authority (perhaps that’s why there is such a hurry to get the economy artificially bubbling again). As things stand, a dash for an election win does seem the most likely strategy, especially if the way things shape up in the US over coming months indicate that the American judiciary’s chances of laying its hands on some of Erdogan’s circle are improving.
The Turkish government sticks to its FX and gold dominated domestic borrowing at a pace​ that continues to raise eyebrows. The Treasury has borrowed a total of 82.3 tonnes of gold from the domestic market since October 2017, Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said on November 5 in a tweet.
Government-run news service Anadolu Agency reported details showing that 2.5 tonnes was borrowed in October 2017, 1.9 tonnes in April 2018, 2.1 tonnes in September-October 2018 and 1.1 tonnes in December 2018-February 2019. All of it came from individual investors.
From institutional investors, 26.18 tonnes was borrowed in February this year, 8.01 tonnes in June, 20.9 tonnes in September, 15.68 tonnes in October and 10.39 tonnes in November.
Central government debt stock rose by 16% year-to-date to TRY1.24 trillion at end-September. It consisted of TRY701bn in domestic debt and TRY538bn in external debt.
Meanwhile, the FX-denominated debt amounts to TRY607bn, suggesting TRY69bn worth of outstanding FX-denominated domestic debt stock.
82​ TURKEY Country Report​ December 2019 ​ ​www.intellinews.com