Türkiye restricting exports to Israel

Turkey announced it was restricting the export of 54 products to Israel, including jet fuel and items used for construction.

Turkey’s trade ministry claimed that the measures — which it said would be in place until a cease-fire is established in Gaza — were in response to Israel denying a request to airdrop aid into the enclave, but many analysts say that domestic political considerations in large part drove the decision. Israel has vowed to respond with its own extensive list of banned exports to Turkey.

Despite their longtime political differences and Turkey’s support of the Palestinian plight, commercial relations between Turkey and Israel have historically remained largely unaffected.

Analysts say that Ankara’s move against Israel could result in losses worth at least $2 billion a year and comes as Turkey faces a dire economic crisis. 

Turkey will take steps to strengthen its medium-term economic programme and the three main priorities are to increase public savings, prioritise investments and accelerate structural reforms, President Tayyip Erdogan said.
Speaking on Tuesday evening after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan said his economic team had made preparations for such steps to strengthen the programme (MTP) and, “hopefully we will share them with the public very soon.”
“We have three main priorities in strengthening the MTP. These are to increase public sector savings, prioritise investments, and accelerate structural reforms.”

Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said both the finance ministry and the budget authority were carrying out studies on public sector savings, with more than 15 articles being worked upon.

“We mean not only reducing expenditures, but making existing expenditures more efficient, prioritising them, and making them contribute more to the economy’s competitiveness, efficiency and social welfare,” state broadcaster TRT reported him as saying.

Erdogan also said on Tuesday evening that economic growth will approach 4% this year with a positive impact from exports, and forecast that the current account deficit will be 2.5% of GDP at the end of the year.

Official data on Wednesday showed that Turkey’s current account deficit stood at $3.265 billion in February, less than a Reuters forecast for a deficit of $3.7 billion.

Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan told a panel in Washington on Tuesday that Turkey is on track to reach its 36% inflation target by the end of the year after peaking at around 75% in the coming months.