CRISIS

Turkey's Institute of Statistics (TÜİK) declares that the country's economy shrunk by 13,8 percent in the first quarter, with respect to the same period in 2008.

Barış Alp Özden from Yıldız Technical University says the numbers reveal that Turkey is hardly hit by the ongoing global crisis, despite recent declarations of upturn.

"If we look closer to the statistics, it's evident that the recession is caused by the dampening of internal demand, led by lowered wages and rising unemployment.  According to official statistics, nominal wages -disregarding the effect of inflation- are decreasing and the number of unemployed rises to 7 million. It's only natural that household spending is also decreasing. The results from the first quarter of 2009 reveal that household spending dropped by 9 percent and this contributed the economy's recession by 7 percent. As production and its financing are dependent on foreign investment, a global melt down caused a plummet in investments."

Özden predicts a milder decrease in the second quarter numbers because of government spending. "But it will be mainly a support for the corporations and only effective in the short term. A negative result will be the tainting budget balance and in return, the burden will be on the workers -again."

"Without tackling the rising unemployment and dropping wages" Özden says, "nothing would be done to protect the people from the crisis."(BÇ/AGÜ)