Automotive Expotrs November 2022

100 billion liras loan package for tradesmen takes effect
The government’s Treasury-supported
loan package scheme for tradesmen and
craftsmen has taken effect following a
presidential decree, Treasury and Finance
Minister Nureddin Nebati has announced.
State lender Halkbank will provide a total
of 100 billion Turkish Liras ($5.4 billion) to
the businesses at an annual interest rate of
7.5 percent to be paid back in 60 months,
Nebati said.
Under the scheme, the limit of loans with
no interest to be made available to young
entrepreneurs has been increased from
100,000 liras to 300,000 liras, while the age
limit to be eligible for those financing has
been increased from 30 to 35, the minister
added. Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan said that interest rates in Türkiye
are coming down toward single digits.
“Hopefully, interest rates will fall to single
digits, and we will save our investors and
citizens from the oppression of interest
rates,” Erdoğan said in a speech he delivered
at a ceremony marking the inauguration of
several facilities in the province of Malatya
on Oct. 22.
Private banks have also started to lower
their interest rates, the president added.
“We did this in the past, lowered [the rate]
down to 4.6 percent and inflation then
dropped to 5.6 percent. We will increase the
income level of all people.”
Erdoğan has been long advocating for
lower interest rates to ignite the engine of
economic growth.
Earlier this month, he said that interest rates
should come down to single digits by the
end of the year. The Central Bank lowered
its benchmark interest rate for the third
month in a row. It slashed the one-week
repo auction rate from 12 percent to 10.5
percent but signaled that it may end the rate
cut cycle.
“The committee evaluated taking a similar
step in the following meeting and ending the
rate cut cycle,” the bank said in a statement
released after the Monetary Policy
Committee (MPC) meeting held on Oct. 20.
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