Will Erdogan’s Trip to the Three Arab Countries Save Turkey’s Economy?

The Round trip of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Persian Gulf countries occurred at a time when Ankara is in its worst economic situation in history.According to Negaheno report experts all believe that one of the most important or perhaps the only goal of this trip would be an effort by Turkey’s president to improve the sick economy of the country.Turkey’s economy is suffering from its lowest national currency value (lira).

Even the government’s solid efforts to stop this plunging trend has led to no positive results. And lira is continuing to drop and each day registers a new figure.The government’s attempt to increase fuel tax by 200% has also left a negative impact on the economic areas of the country apart from speeding up the declining trend. As the ministry of the trade had stressed the government expects to reconstruct the destruction caused by the heavy earthquake of last winter through the rise in the fuel tax!With Erdogan’s trip to the wealthy countries of the Persian Gulf he hopes to save Turkey’s bankrupt economy through various financial contracts.

Export and investment of the Arabs in Turkey’s military industry in particular, on drones and also on the automobile industry over the electric automobile, “TOGG” as well as other construction and development contracts and oil industry are Erdogan’s expectation from this trip.Based on the reports the welcoming of all the three Arab countries from Erdogan and the 200 Turkish tradesmen in the form of a delegation has taken place with different motives. Perhaps the greatest motive of all is Turkey’s membership in NATO.

However, in its first glance Erdogan has succeeded in signing several valuable contracts and MOUs. Of course, there is no mention of the amount of agreement made with Saudi Arabia but it seems there are several agreements made in the area of drone and oil industry.Qatar is also ready to increase its investment in Turkey through Turkish companies and supporting its currency reserves of Turkey’s central bank. Qatar regards The Ikhwan government of Turkey as one of its main supporters among its Arab rivals who would not ignore any opportunity to instigate hostility. The government of Abu Dhabi has also said that it has signed several agreements worth over 50 million dollars with Turkey.

Turkey’s government hopes that these three countries would soon pump in over 10 billion dollars into Turkey’s industry so that it would work as a temporary tranquilizer for the sick economy of the country.Considering the recent reports of the development fund on the three Arab countries it does not appear that they could be of any help since these countries expect for Qatar are economically not thriving.

Experts believe that Erdogan’s wrong and costly policymaking specially since 2011 which transformed the policy of “ zero tension” with neighboring countries to “ rising tensions” and its military ambitions in Syria, Iraq, and north Africa besides the existence of an organized corruption as well as switching policies of the government with Western, Arab countries and with Russia are the real reasons behind the economic crisis in Turkey and the rise in the budget deficit and foreign debts to over half billion dollars.These experts believe that unless the government of Turkey decides to bring a drastic change in its policies and avoid being a player for the West and to fail to fight corruption, the people of Turkey will be distanced from peace and real development each day.

Although looking at reports that reflect the fall of flag holders in Ukraine war, it is not clear how the agreement with the Arabs would bring in a bright new horizon for Turkey.