Erdoğan’s gas finds no cure for economic ills

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s announcement on Friday that a Turkish seismic ship discovered natural gas in the Black Sea provides no cure for the country’s economic ills, Turkish columnist Mustafa Karaalioğlu said on Monday.

While Turkey may well have found valuable reserves of natural gas - the government says they amount to 320 billion cubic metres - Friday was not, as the government claims, the first time Turkey has discovered hydrocarbons, Karaalioğlu said in an article for Karar newspaper.

“There’s no point in either exaggerating or underplaying it,” he said.

The discovery would place Turkey in 32nd position in a ranking of countries for natural gas reserves should they be proven as economical to extract. Russia leads with 50 trillion cubic metres of proven reserves, Iran is second with 34 trillion cubic metres and Qatar third with 23.8 trillion cubic metres, Karaalioğlu said, citing data from OPEC.

Karaalioğlu was the Ankara bureau chief and general news coordinator of the pro-government Yeni Şafak newspaper in the early years of the Erdoğan government, which came to power in 2002. In 2007, he became head of news at the Star newspaper, which was also close to the government, and joined NTV news channel in 2014.

The Turkish lira slid to a record low of 7.408 per dollar early last week on concern that the central bank’s depleted foreign exchange reserves, a lending boom by state-run banks and a widening current account deficit was threatening to destablise the economy.

The lira fell 0.5 percent to 7.37 per dollar on Monday.

“Turkey’s economic difficulties continue,” Karaalioğlu said, citing low manufacturing production levels, lack of technology, an insufficiently qualified workforce and other structural issues.

“Natural gas and petrol are no solution to this,” he said.