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Southeast Europe
April 12, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
Down like a lead balloon: Turkish finance minister’s economic package goes nowhere with investors
Akin Nazli in Belgrade
It’s fair to say that the structural economic reform programme presented by Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak on April 10 went down like a lead balloon with many analysts.
With Turkey facing another bout of the currency crisis blues and mired in an ugly recession, investors were hoping for something to get their teeth stuck into. The verdict from Fidelity International? “Underwhelming”.
So lead balloon or nothingburger – describe it how you will, the reviews were not kind – has Albayrak now put himself in a situation where, as Timothy Ash at BlueBay Asset Management had it, there is a “narrow window of opportunity for [him] to deliver reform without going to the IMF”?
Ash also noted that the Turkish economy is facing additional headwinds from the S-400 missile defence issue – that’s right, Albayrak’s strongman father in-law and executive president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is telling anyone who’ll listen that he really doesn’t care about putting the wind up Washington and Nato by going ahead with the purchase of some of the Kremlin’s top military hardware and may even get the delivery
Albayrak seen delivering his PowerPoint slideshow on April 10. The presentations are slowly attracting a cult following for their shallowness.
speeded up! – and the Istanbul election headache – Erdogan, who made his name as mayor of the business capital, could well be about to cause a big stink as to whether Turkey can still claim to be a democracy by supporting the annulment of the painful Istanbul poll loss to the opposition on the basis of... well, the precise nature of the alleged dodgy goings-on are none too clear yet but they can move for annulment and fill in the details later – but getting back to the underwhelmed Fidelity we have money manager Paul Greer sighing – sorry, saying – in a note that Albayrak left observers dissatisfied “particularly in regard to Turkey’s fiscal trajectory”.
Albayrak, developing something of a reputation as PowerPoint Man – it’s not just the content but the graphics of his show that leave something to be desired – also, according to a reading of Greer’s note appears to have fanned existing concerns
by offering “scant” detail on how to deal in a sustainable manner with rising non-performing loans in the energy and construction sectors, support exports, improve pension savings and reduce food price inflation.
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