The hope of Turkish economy in Arab capital

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, the economic crisis continues in Turkey And Erdogan’s government, which promised to lower the dollar from 20 lira a year ago, has now stopped at 33 lira for a long time and has not done anything.

Meanwhile, important Shimsek, an economist familiar with the financial markets of Wall Street, Doha and London, who is in charge of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Erdogan’s cabinet, still could not do anything to change the crisis situation of his country. 

Turkey’s finance minister has openly announced that for now there is no way but to tighten the belts and stick to austerity policies and if everything goes well in the second half of 2025

Meeting of Arab banks in Istanbul Mehmet Shimshek, in addition to being strict on government bodies in order to reduce their heavy expenses and also increase the country’s tax revenues, is traveling day and night to attract big global investors to Turkey. But so far, he has not achieved much success in attracting American, European, Chinese and Singaporean investors, and his only hope is to attract money from banks and the rich of Arab countries. 

Erdoğan and Şimşek, in an initiative, made the international banking summit of Arab countries to be held in Istanbul. They are looking for several financial goals in order to attract Arab capital, and the most important target countries in this dollar diplomacy are: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq and Algeria. 

Mohammed Al-Atrebi, the head of the Arab Banks Union, at the meeting in Istanbul, considered this city to be a connecting bridge between Europe and Asia, which in a very strategic region, advances the economic relations between Turkey and the Arabs.

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This Egyptian economist has announced that the time has come to invest more in Turkey. According to him, the trade of 73 billion dollars between Turkey and Arab countries is a testimony to prove the claim that the relationship is getting better every year than the previous year.

He also announced that The prediction of economic groups to estimate the number of Arab tourists traveling to Turkey in 2024 is about 10 million tourists, and it is expected that many opportunities will emerge between Turkey and Arab countries in the coming years and the amount of investment will also increase.

Mohammad Al-Aterbi said at the Istanbul meeting: “Turkey’s economy will grow by 4.5 percent in 2023.” It is expected to experience good growth this year and inflation will decrease in the coming years, and these are good signals for investors. Third countries emphasized that Turkey has a strategic role in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. According to the head of the Arab Banks Union, Turkey, as a member of the Group of Twenty, is one of the most important productive countries and has a good position in the international supply chain. 

In another part of his speech, he mentioned the importance of the “development path” project between Turkey, Iraq and Qatar and called for the strengthening of financial and banking relations between Turkey and Arab countries. Currently, several foreign banks are active in Turkey, and 11 banks belonging to Arab countries have a share of 14.5% in the Turkish financial market. Iraqi private banks have also stated at the Arab Banks Summit in Istanbul that the economic relations between Turkey and Iraq have gained significant momentum and the volume of trade between the two countries has reached a good level and Turkey has made a significant contribution to Iraq’s strategic development plans.

He said about the cargo development route project to transfer Faw port of Iraq to Turkey: “This project will be a very important alternative to the sea route and at the same time it will be a faster transportation method and the transfer of goods between China , India, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq, Turkey and the United Kingdom”.
According to the information provided to the media by Arab bankers at the Istanbul Summit, First Abu Dhabi Bank, as the largest bank in the United Arab Emirates, is on the verge of buying the fourth bank.

Accordingly, it has been announced that Yapı Kredi Bank (Bank owned by Koch Holding) will be sold to an Emirati party with a purchase offer of about 8 billion dollars.

In the meantime, another Emirati giant named NBD Bank, whose head office is located in Dubai, bought Turkey’s Deniz Bank in 2018 for $3.2 billion.

These are only examples of the development of financial relations between Turkey and the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, and there are several important Arab banks such as QNB Finansbank, Burgan Bank and Arap Türk Bankası that have already entered the Turkish market.

The share of Arab banks in the Turkish banking sector, where 57 banks with a total balance sheet of more than 827 billion dollars are currently operating, is about 14%. But it is expected to increase more in the future.

Murad Yetkin, one of Turkey’s political analysts, believes that the rich Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region are preparing themselves for the post-oil era and want a significant part of Take over the banking and tourism industry of Turkey. 

Diplomat and international expert in the field of energy, Mehet Ogutcu, said about the importance of financial relations between Turkey and rich Arab countries: “As one of the speakers at the Istanbul Summit, he addressed hundreds of bankers from 22 Arab country, I announced that despite the importance of the dangers of climate change and the risks and opportunities created, the new model of cooperation between Turkey and the Arab world has been formed on a banking platform, and such a thing is of vital importance. Of course, I also pointed out that if you are honest, there is no such thing as the Arab world and we cannot talk about a unified and homogeneous Arab world. The economic level of Arabs in Somalia or Algeria is not the same as that of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Although the Arabs have a population of 465 million people in a vast geography, they do not have a strong influence and their continued survival is not possible without oil and natural gas income. Therefore, they should change the current path. The decline of the hydrocarbon era and the rise of green energy will seriously concern them all. In this situation, Turkey’s relations with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and others are very valuable, and efforts should be made to normalize relations with Syria. 

Mehmet Ogutçu said that unlike Mehmet Şimşek, he believes that the relations between Turkey and the Arab countries are still not at a high level and that more trust should be established by forming a safe fund.