Turkish consumers hit with big fuel price increases

publiziert: Freitag, 13. Apr 2001 / 18:17 Uhr

Ankara - Turkish motorists were on Friday hit with an 11 per cent increase in fuel prices, the sixth increase since a financial crisis hit the country in late February, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Prices for unleaded petrol in Ankara have now risen by some 57 per cent in Turkish lira terms since the government was forced to float the lira on February 21.

The lira itself has lost some 40 per cent in value since the crisis erupted following an argument between President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit over the prime minister's handling of a series of corruption investigations.

Friday also saw price rises announced for cannister gas and LPG of between 15.1 and 16.3 per cent.

The price rises, while not unexpected, will make it difficult for the government to keep to its inflation targets for the year.

Anadolu on Friday reported that the government had revised its year-end wholesale inflation target from a single-digit figure to 50 per cent.

Quoting unnamed sources, Anadolu said that in a worse case scenario GNP was set to contract 3 per cent while if things went well GNP could rise by 1 per cent.

Economy Minister Kemal Dervis is scheduled to announce the government's targets when he releases a new economic package on Saturday. On Thursday night he met with IMF and World Bank officials for talks that were described as "welcoming".

Meanwhile, Cumhuriyet newspaper on Friday reported that the Turkish military had postponed its 7 billion dollar main battle tank project as part of its response to the crisis.

Without giving any details or sources, the newspaper said that in addition to the tank project, the Turkish general staff had decided to postpone a 4 billion dollar attack helicopter project and a military satellite project worth 200 million dollars.

A decision to buy four early warning radar aircraft (AWACs) has been put off as well as a submarine project.

The general staff on Wednesday announced that it had postponed 19.5 billion dollars-worth of medium-term projects to help Turkey overcome the current cash-crunch brought on by the economic crisis.

The military statement on Wednesday did not specify which projects were to be postponed and there was no statement released Friday confirming the details of the Cumhuriyet report.

(kil/dpa)

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