Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MÜSİAD) President Abdurrahman Kaan made a written statement on the possible negative effects of high interest rates on investments ahead of the Central Bank's interest rate announcement.
In his statement, MÜSİAD President Abdurrahman Kaan said the following;
The Central Bank's price stability objective has begun a brand-new period, both in terms of discourse and in terms of method. A monetary policy focused on price stability gives us hope.
The interest rate, which was raised in order to appreciate our national currency because of the increasing exchange rate pressure, has at the same time been brought to a certain level, taking the current inflation into account, in order to increase the capital inflows that our country needs in this process.
Our confidence is complete that this obligatory intervention was of course carried out, under the responsibility of the independent Central Bank administration, for the sake of the interests of our country. However, proceeding from our approach that the power of money in a country is determined by that country's production and investment power, we as MÜSİAD maintain that a lasting price stability comes through a planned and continuous synchronization of investment, production and trade. We would like to underline that the interest rate increase, which developed as a reflex appropriate to the conditions of the period, can be tolerated up to a certain level, and that otherwise it will leave a destructive effect, particularly on investments. We are of the opinion that the plans of investors to revive production and trade, to increase employment and ultimately to suppress inflation should not be crowded out by the effect of high interest rates.
Providing a more favourable environment both for national investors and for foreign direct investments, and the transformation of this environment into production and exports, is our fundamental objective. Proceeding from this observation, it is clear that downward movements in interest rates beyond a certain point are indispensable in terms of investments.