TR Economy & Updates

[YeşilVatan]

What kind of flatbread is this? Almost a $250 million market, and that much money circulating in a single city, isn't that abnormal? So, it's not about the flatbread!

$250m in 5 years. It's possible especially if they branched out to Adana. Lavaş is the lord of all bread. Praise be upon lavaş.

 

[Tornadoss]

Here as @Zafer like PPP and charts here another chart from 2024.
Median disposable income compared to European countries Turkiye is lower than any EU country in similar levels with Serbia.

Another important data is the GINI index where Turkiye performs the worst in the whole Europe, the wealth is going just a few riches.

 

[Zafer]

Stats of the day
Unemployment @ 7.7 %
Central bank forex @ $215.6 bn
Gold reserves @ 642 ton #10 in the world
Stock market soaring @ 13.650
Passenger plane count @ 800 up 242 in the last 5 years 43%
having a good day

 

[Tornadoss]

Another statistic is Employment rate lowest in OECD. Nearly half of the workforce is not participating to the economy.
Also young adult unemployment is quite high.

Türkiye's youth unemployment crisis turns into structural problem as official statistics reveal that 6.7 million young adults between the ages of 15 and 34 are neither in education nor employment. Approximately 28% of Türkiye's youth population in this age bracket, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute

Türkiye faces alarming youth unemployment crisis with 6.7M young adults idle - Türkiye Today

Figures show approximately 28% of Türkiye's youth population are neither being educated or employed

www.turkiyetoday.com

 

[contricusc]

Another statistic is Employment rate lowest in OECD. Nearly half of the workforce is not participating to the economy.
Also young adult unemployment is quite high.

A low employment rate can be interpreted as bad (if you think the reason is the lack of jobs), or as good (many people can afford to live without having a job).

For example, if you look at women in employment, some would say a high rate is good for the economy, while others would see a high rate as the inability of a man to support a family from his earnings.

Low imployment may also singal that there is a large black economy, which goes unreported. This is not necessary a bad thing. It means the real economy is bigger than what appears in statistics.

When you look at the employment stats, you can see it’s more of a cultural thing than economical. Latin and Mediterranean countries tend to have a lower employment rate. Maybe it’s because people here are not willing to take whatever job is available, and are more adept at finding other sources of income (black economy again).

 

[Nilgiri]

I agree with you that nominal GDP is also a very flawed indicator.

I thnk that the PPP variant is more relevant when comparing the purchasing power of the population, while nominal value is more relevant when comparing the size of a countr’s economy,

What matters most for a person is the quantity of goods and services he/she can purchase (which outside vacations is almost completely spent locally), so the PPP adjustment makes sense.

But when comparing countries, what matters is their ability to trade, to project power and to intercat with other countries. This is mostly done in nominal terms.

You can’t buy F35 jets or Blackwell NVIDIA chips with PPP adjusted dollars.

When you compare company profits, you don’t use PPP. You simply convert their earnings at the market rate. A multinational company earning billions of dollars in the US is much wealthier than a company earning millions of dollars in India, because it has more money for M&A or for expansion abroad. The PPP becomes meaningless in this situation.

Like I said, there is no be all end all. It depends what you are after.

I mean even GDP can be whittled down to improve signal to noise ratio (SNR) and focus on specific things that are more easily vetted end-end (say trade since its hard to fudge that) and offer something qualitative. Relative "noise" may or may not be good, real, spurious eddy or entirely fake... in tabulation quality. Exactly the kind of thing that Keqiang (Chinese premier) was suggesting and promoting to bypass "unreliable" PRC GDP total (till that line of thinking in CCP echelon finding some form in post-Deng era today was suppressed)

But even with those, how much is the local IP content, coherent human org (positive sum hierarchy), value addition and profit margin etc vs the inverses of those that are just non-pareto "bulk" (sweatshop adage) but which is also important in the end. Things like IP theft and coercion too that enter new scale with marxist-leninist court system (the uniparty is in entire control of the court system and its interpretation of civil law posited in the PRC constitution and legal code/conventions).

Simply using USD to extend to whole economy (of which GDP is an estimate) based on trade intersection carries inherent fault. But it gives relative bounds you can put some error bounds around to get a rough macro picture. It doesnt make it better or more relevant than PPP.... the SNR ratio improvement simply can be done for both. Both essentially carry same set of caveats in end.

Keqiang SNR improvement examples (within essentially what is captured by "PPP" far better):

- The Chinese dont pay their electricity bills in USD
- railway track addition numbers and totals done without USD reliant foreign capital flows.

Neither enter "easily tradeable" picture like what governs USD XR with Yuan (or at least pressures given the pegging with forex reserves and capital exit controls and so on). The very systems (and ability to lie/distort for various reasons if you look at drop of high frequency data PRC is reducing now under Xi) are very different.

We just have rough picture at macro with both.

When you have relative same systems, mature markets and contexts (say within europe, or transatlantic, OECD etc) with high exposure between all parties regd trade, investment and even human labour flow etc......then yes GDP nominal becomes much more relevant between them....the price signalling inertia has permeated deeply enough, there is standardized release of high frequency components to track and so on.

Anyway its getting off topic a bit.

 

[Nilgiri]

Here as @Zafer like PPP and charts here another chart from 2024.
Median disposable income compared to European countries Turkiye is lower than any EU country in similar levels with Serbia.

Another important data is the GINI index where Turkiye performs the worst in the whole Europe, the wealth is going just a few riches.

Interesting. See the first one is done in "PPS"... a PPP kind of thing again. It has more relevance in end (compared to strict use of say nominal Euro and its exchange rate for Lira etc when we talk of larger human development.

Issue with Turkey is there has been severe economic mismanagement. It has not promoted broad base supply side reforms for quite some time now....so wealth that does arrive gets concentrated more where it already is.

Only with getting supply side basics right + stable signalling, you get a comprehensive bulk to tax and transfer for welfare to help the "last 20% - 40%" of population etc with any market slowness/failure there on essentials (that needs good functioning republic and legislature and courts etc)

Without supply side improvement.... fiscal constraint enters the picture (since demands exceed/pressure things), especially with capital flow instability. You go to gulfie countries for sukuk bonds and currency exchanges etc... rather than large investors from developed capital markets etc. All made worse from that stupid policy that lowering interest rates will address inflation (when its the reverse).

In any case I read that Turkish capital market is now on rebound. Seems to have stabilised around 400 billion market cap now compared to wild swings/shocks. Let us see how that goes....but TR needs a ton of reforms that are not being done.

 

[GoatsMilk]

Some points are right. The “stability argument” is mostly wrong. We have the most stability period in our country since 25 years.

last 25 years have been an endless series of crises.

 

[Iskander]

last 25 years have been an endless series of crises.

Yes, that's how it was. Crisis followed crisis. For 25 years.

But the economy grew throughout these years. Moreover, the growth rate was significantly higher than the European average.

I don't understand how this is possible.

Is the crisis related to economic growth at all?
After all, there is such a thing as a growth crisis, albeit in a different context.

 

[Zafer]

Yes, that's how it was. Crisis followed crisis. For 25 years.

But the economy grew throughout these years. Moreover, the growth rate was significantly higher than the European average.

I don't understand how this is possible.

Is the crisis related to economic growth?
After all, there is such a thing as a growth crisis, albeit in a different context.

It has been a period of cold war between Türkiye and the west not to be seen as a natural aconomy period.

 

[Lool]

Holy Shit!
Erdogan wants to sell the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge and July 15 martyr's bridge bridge and many other toll highways and roads to private Western companies
This is bloody treason!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/turkey-said-to-hire-ey-for-landmark-bridge-privatization-deal

 

[Zafer]

Holy Shit!
Erdogan wants to sell the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge and July 15 martyr's bridge bridge and many other toll highways and roads to private Western companies
This is bloody treason!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/turkey-said-to-hire-ey-for-landmark-bridge-privatization-deal

Why do you call it treason?

 

[AlperTunga]

Holy Shit!
Erdogan wants to sell the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge and July 15 martyr's bridge bridge and many other toll highways and roads to private Western companies
This is bloody treason!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/turkey-said-to-hire-ey-for-landmark-bridge-privatization-deal

This is not a bad idea if the price is ok. We need money now for our defence projects. This will be paid by people using those roads and bridges. As long as we dont sell critical firms and factories, no problem.

 

[Sanchez]

This will be paid by people using those roads and bridges

People already paid for them for years.

 

[TR_123456]

Why do you call it treason?

So,you find it ok to sell vital infrastructure like bridges to private companies?

This is not a bad idea if the price is ok. We need money now for our defence projects. This will be paid by people using those roads and bridges. As long as we dont sell critical firms and factories, no problem.

So,a bridge is nothing critical or important?


There is something significantly wrong with your way of thinking,both of you.

 

[Sanchez]

So,you find it ok to sell a vital infrastructure like bridges to private companies?

So,a bridge is nothing critical or important?


There is something significantly wrong with your way of thinking,both of you.

To be frank, I don't think this is about selling the bridge but privatizing its operation.

 

[TR_123456]

To be frank, I don't think this is about selling the bridge but privatizing its operation.

What is privatizing?
A private company takes over everything so prices will go up to make it profitable for the company.
The only difference is on paper then.

 

[Zafer]

So,you find it ok to sell vital infrastructure like bridges to private companies?

So,a bridge is nothing critical or important?


There is something significantly wrong with your way of thinking,both of you.

Are you aware that we have already done this in the 1990's, it is naive to oppose such a move, if you can find a buyer that is.

Also note that all our new bridges are operated by consortiums which mean the same thing.

 

[Huelague]

„Selling“ a bridge doesn’t mean the customer will take it away. The customer will operate it for years, depend on contract, he will maintain and repair it if necessary and of course take a fee. These contracts are timely limited, in general.

In Germany we don’t have such things, because the infrastructure is owned by the public (taxpayers).

 

[TR_123456]

Are you aware that we have already done this in the 1990's, it is naive to oppose such a move, if you can find a buyer that is.

Also note that all our new bridges are operated by consortiums which mean the same thing.

Which deal was that in the 1990"s?