Speaking at a meeting of the Turkish Construction and Installation Contractors Employer Syndicate (İNTES), Şimşek stated that despite the hit that the Turkish real sector took during the economic crisis, Turkey has exited the crisis with a strong and successful infrastructure.
“If interest rates can stay in single digits, then Turkey will have achieved a great feat. … In terms of public financing, low interest rates will help us achieve significant gains that will come back to Turkey as investments. If we can reduce the budget deficit, we can invest in education, infrastructure, research and development. We could also possibly reduce the tax burden on Turkey’s industry, but only after we have the financial ability to do so,” Şimşek stated.
Regarding public investments, Şimşek stated that government investments would be toward areas which would increase the competitiveness of the nation. He added that alternative financing sources needed to be taken advantage of for long-term strategic investments with high returns. Pointing to private-public investments (PPP) as a potential source for financing such projects, he stressed the need for this model to be developed and better used in Turkey.
Unfair informal economy
Regarding the informal economy, Şimşek stated that this problem was one of the main obstacles for Turkey’s economy. He stressed that the informal economy should not only be seen in terms of potential loss of revenue for the government, but something that creates inefficiencies and opens the door to unfair competition.
He added that his ministry was taking the steps to strengthen the Revenues Administration (GİB) with technological tools to make “tax fraud incredibly difficult,” by using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to label products, making it easier for the government to audit companies. He added that details about who produced the goods, their production number and date along with other details regarding the goods would be available to tax inspectors.
