Erdogan and the failure of the 2023 vision in Türkiye.
These days in Turkey, the economic crisis, stagflation and unemployment continue to make the lives of millions of families in the country difficult.
However, Mehmet Simsek, the Minister of Finance and Treasury and the helmsman of the Turkish economy, has announced that the country will soon become one of the largest investment centers in the world.
But economists say that Turkey is not a safe country for foreign capital activity and that during the imprisonment of the former mayor of Istanbul, Imamoglu, and the psychological shock of the market, at least $ 60 billion of the foreign exchange reserves of the Turkish Central Bank have been destroyed so that the government can keep the price of the US dollar at the level of 39 liras.
Although Simsek’s words are optimistic, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone even further and announced that the economic crisis in Turkey is over and his government has been able to achieve the goals of the 2023 Vision document.
Erdogan’s statement led to many negative reactions. Because one of the ambitious goals of that document was to make Turkey one of the top 10 economies in the world, and now Turkey has barely managed to keep itself floating between 20th and 21st.
Taha Ak Yul, a conservative Turkish analyst, has challenged Erdogan’s claim in his analytical and critical note.
Let’s review the comments of this famous journalist together:
Have the goals of the 2023 Vision been achieved?
If you remember, during his prime ministership and since the publication of the 2011 election manifesto, Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized his party’s “2023 goals” on every occasion.
But after a few years and a time when it failed to achieve these goals, it quietly abandoned it to be forgotten.
According to Erdogan’s speeches in 2023 and 2024, the new goal is a slogan called “Turkish Century”. Of course, this is an epic and heroic concept that apparently has no clear basis in calculations. But the strange thing is that Erdogan, after a long silence about the vision, spoke about it two days ago and said: “Fortunately, the goals of Vision 2023 have been achieved. 15 years ago, we proposed Vision 2023 and, thank God, we achieved this goal. Now, don’t be fooled by the 2053 document that this date seems distant and that we should not plan for the future from now on. Remember, when we came to power in 2002, 2023 seemed distant.”
Erdogan simply claimed that the goals of the 2023 Vision document have been achieved and that he is planning for 2053, that is, for another 28 years!
After Erdogan’s speech was published, one of those who quickly reacted to him was the leader of the Muttahida Qandil Party, Ali Babacan.
In response to the president, he said: “Don’t mock the intelligence of the Turkish people and tell the truth. The per capita national income target for 2023 was $25,000. But the realized figure is $13,243! The export target for your 2023 Vision was $500 billion, but the realized figure is $255 billion. You barely managed to achieve only part of the goals of that document. The market statistics are clear, and everyone knows what happened. At least keep quiet and don’t say the opposite.”
After Babacan released this clear message, many supporters of Erdogan and the ruling party attacked him, citing excuses such as the failed coup of July 15, the coronavirus pandemic, the February 2023 earthquake, and other issues as the main reasons for the failure to realize the vision!