Turkey's Erdogan seeks long-term investments, says interest rates to drop

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on foreign investors to make long-term investments in Turkey, saying those who have made long-term investments in the country have "always won."

In a wide-ranging interview with Turkish public broadcaster TRT on Tuesday, Erdogan spoke about Turkey's economy, domestic politics as well as Ankara's foreign policy. 

"It is time for foreign investors to make long-term investments (in Turkey). Those who have made long-term investments in Turkey have always won, and they will keep winning," he said. 

Turkey's economy is expected to grow by over 10 percent by the end of the year 2021, the president said, adding "Our (year-end growth) expectation is at least 10, but it can exceed it." 

Erdogan emphasised that Turkey is lowering its current account deficit every month, and hopefully, it will post a current account surplus next year.

"We are no longer posting current account deficit and financing this deficit with external debt, but we are moving towards an economy that gains foreign currency and posting current account surplus," he explained.

"Our new economic model doesn't have a high-interest rates policy that yields hot money flow. We'll support production and export with low-interest rates," he added.

READ MORE: Turkey records second-fastest economic growth among OECD states

On lowering interest rate

Erdogan said his government's focus on increasing investment, employment, production, and export and lowering interest will boost economic growth.

"Interest is the cause, inflation is the result. We are lowering the interest rate, and we will see the inflation decrease," he said. 

He reaffirmed his stance that he would not allow high-interest rates to stifle growth.

"Our aim is to open the way for 50,000 new jobs by enabling 11,000 of our companies to benefit from low-cost loans with a total amount of 10 billion Turkish liras [$0.74 billion] in a short time," he added.

"We have prepared two important support packages. We will provide access to loans up to 100,000 lira [$7,404] for new employees to our companies with less than 50 employees."

President Erdogan also said that the first gas production from on Sakarya gas field will start by January 2023.

He said 10 million cubic metres will be extracted per day from 10 wells in first phase and the figure will increase to 40 million with the completion of the second phase.

Ties with Gulf nations and France

Erdogan said Ankara will put efforts to have better ties with Saudi Arabia, adding Turkey ties with Egypt are at ministerial level as of now but there may be more developments. 

Erdogan said he informed French President Emmanuel Macron about his country's links with Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria through cement giant Lafarge, "but he [Macron] ignored the issue."

"This is how they act. They are hypocrites."

READ MORE: Erdogan: Turkish economy well-positioned to compete on world stage