Parliament debates 2010 budget

Addressing yesterday's budget debate in Parliament, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek praised the government's management of the economic crisis without seeking assistance from the International Monetary Fund. "The 2010 budget aims to maintain low interest rates," he said. "It allocates a greater amount for students and persons with disabilities; it allows greater benefits for civil servants and a bigger budget for education and health." He also voiced an expectation that the global economy, whose growth was pegged at 5.2 percent in 2007, would contract by 1.1 percent by the end of 2009. "We expect the Turkish economy to grow by 3.5 percent in 2010," he said. "But the IMF, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and international financial institutions have estimated that this figure will be between 3.7 and 5.5 percent." Simsek also said that according to the OECD's latest economic outlook, Turkey is expected to grow by 6.7 percent between 2011 and 2017. "I'd like to underline that this figure is the highest after those of China and India," he added. During his speech, Simsek said Turkey is among a handful of world nations that were able to minimize the negative effects of the crisis. "If interest rates are in the single digits, inflation is at the lowest level in the past 40 years, and our country's credit scores are improving, and if not a single bank has gone bankrupt, then we can say that Turkey is one of the countries which was least impacted by the economic crisis," he said.