The Ankara government has announced measures to support the victims of the earthquake. President Erdogan aims to hold elections in Turkey in June, as originally planned, instead of May, which was announced before the devastating earthquake. “It is very likely that an agreement will be reached on holding elections on June 18,” said a government spokesman in Reuters, adding that Erdogan and his nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli would meet to make a final decision. The official said the idea of ​​postponing the election is losing ground because it would create an image of a government avoiding elections, given the backlash from the opposition to the postponement proposal and constitutional legal issues.

Support measures include a ban on layoffs at enterprises in ten regions affected by the earthquake for a period of at least three months. Assistance of $7 per day is also provided to those who worked in businesses that were destroyed or who are now working on reduced hours due to natural disasters.

The Ankara government has announced measures to support the victims of the earthquake.

Assistance is also provided to enterprises that have been destroyed or have suffered significant damage. Through its own assessment of the disaster, JPMorgan has calculated that in total, ten affected regions in Turkey represent more than 9% of the country’s GDP. Long before he issued the aforementioned presidential decree, the Turkish president promised 100 billion Turkish lira, or $5.3 billion, in financial assistance to the earthquake victims. After all, the neighboring country has already received billions of dollars in aid from the World Bank. , US government and European countries. Indeed, on Monday, Tayyip Erdogan went to Hatay, one of the provinces most affected by earthquakes, and promised that “everything will be restored from scratch.” He also promised construction on nearly 200,000 new homes in the area would begin next month.

Indeed, at today’s meeting, the Bank of Turkey is expected to return the famous round of lowering interest rates, which is always chosen by the President of Turkey to stimulate growth. This time around, Erdogan’s government’s incentives have been stepped up as it needs to accelerate post-destruction growth. The expected new round of interest rate cuts is worrying economists and analysts as the Bank of Turkey cut interest rates by a total of 5 percentage points over the past year, despite inflation approaching 90% and systematically lowering incomes and living standards. Turks. Turkey’s president is pushing for this unorthodox monetary policy at a time when all the world’s central banks are actively raising interest rates in an attempt to stop ever-accelerating inflation, partly as a result of the pandemic and partly because of the energy crisis. For two months, the interest rates on the Turkish lira have been at the level of 9%. However, according to the estimates of most economists who participated in the relevant Reuters survey, they are expected to further decline by half a percentage point. As for inflation in the neighboring country, it slowed down in January, falling to 57.7%, after the first rise to the highest level in the last 24 years, namely 85.5%. The cost of rebuilding quake-hit areas and the necessary infrastructure is estimated to be somewhere between $10 billion and $100 billion. At the same time, excavation and debris removal work, burial of the dead, and assessment of the total amount of damage.