Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan and Finance Minister Mehmet Sim\u015fek turned up in New York last week to reassure investors worried about Turkey\u2019s increasingly fragile economy that all was well.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations 2015 Corporate Conference in New York City, Mr Davuto\u011flu has painted a rosy picture. Fears that Turkey\u2019s growth was driven by a bubble that might be bursting soon were not justified. Describing Turkey\u2019s performance as much better than the world and OECD averages, he said that it was the second fastest growing country in Europe and 12th fastest in the OECD. \u00a0It was not too bad to have 3 percent growth by world standards but Turkey aimed higher. It wanted to make it at least 4 percent this year, and 5 and 6 percent in coming years.<\/p>\n
Mr Davuto\u011flu talked at length about country\u2019s impressive highway network, successful national airline, its plans to build the biggest airport in the world and other mega projects but his audience was more interested about his President\u2019s idiosyncratic interventions on the Central Bank and its monetary policy. Investors did not hide their concerns about political risk. What they really wanted to know was who was running the country.<\/p>\n
On the day the Turkish lira hit an all-time low, it was not an easy job to convince investors and commentators in New York.<\/p>\n
Even though Mr. Davuto\u011flu was quite upbeat about the meetings, reactions reported by the media were not so. Reuters<\/a> said \u201cTurkey’s New York investor meetings fail to stem lira rout\u201d. \u00a0Business Insider\u2019s Linette Lopez wrote<\/a> \u00a0that Turkey’s Wall Street was in ‘panic mode\u2019.<\/p>\n I could not help thinking that real sense of panic was yet to come; not in Turkey\u2019s financial centre but in the original Wall Street, when \u00a0President Erdogan\u2019s chief economic advisor Mr Bulut will be visiting the USA later this week.<\/p>\n Yi\u011fit Bulut, who had hit the \u00a0headlines in the past by suggesting that anti-government\u00a0 protestors were trying to harm Mr Erdo\u011fan through telekinesis, \u00a0\u00a0has again caused controversy this week by declaring \u00a0Euro to be \u201cnot a real currency\u201d.<\/p>\n