Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek started his speech at the General Assembly of the Parliament on the 2024 budget of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance by wishing God's mercy to Saadet Party Kocaeli Deputy Hasan Bitmez, who died after a heart attack, and his condolences to his family and relatives.
Making evaluations about the global economy, Şimşek stated that the slowdown in trade, which is one of the main engines of global growth, is particularly worrying.
Şimşek explained that financial conditions, which were tightened due to the fight against inflation, have begun to loosen, and that global interest rate reductions are expected to begin, especially after the second half of next year.
"This is also positive for our program. Because capital flows towards developing countries will probably be more positive in 2024. In addition, commodity prices, which increased rapidly after the epidemic, have been weakening since the beginning of the year," Şimşek said.
GROWTH IN THE LAST YEAR IS SOURCED BY DOMESTIC DEMAND
Stating that monthly inflation has entered a downward trend since August, Şimşek said, "The loss of momentum in inflation is clearly evident and has evolved towards a path compatible with our 2024 targets. As a matter of fact, if you look at inflation expectations for the next 12 months, they have decreased by 5 points in the last two months and have converged to our targets. The annual inflation decline will show itself in the second half of 2024. We aim to reduce inflation to 36 percent by the end of next year and to single-digit levels in 2026. The market has started buying targets for next year and beyond."
Şimşek stated that the growth in the last year was driven by domestic demand and that a more balanced composition was needed for sustainable high growth and that this was what their programs aimed at.
“THERE IS NO NEED FOR RESOURCES WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF BILATERAL RELATIONS”
Emphasizing that no resource is cost-free, Şimşek clarified the words "We do not need money" in his speech.
"I was told, 'You are traveling from country to country, but nothing came.' We explain our program while traveling around the countries. We started to obtain our external resource needs from the market. I wanted to say 'there is no need for resources within the framework of bilateral relations'," Şimşek added.