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es in the eu orbit to come in with a deficit within the 3 official target level so while there are no guarantees that the latest initiative from the central bank will work there are grounds for hope and expectation that both they and the government will make changes and search for solutions even if they don t posted by edward hugh at 12 15 pm no comments saturday june 20 2009 facebook links quietly clicking my way through bloomberg last sunday afternoon i came across this facebook members register names at 550 a second facebook inc the world s largest social networking site said members registered new user names at a rate of more than 550 a second after the company offered people the chance to claim a personalized web address facebook started accepted registrations at midnight new york time on a first come first served basis within the first seven minutes 345 000 people had claimed user names said larry yu a spokesman for palo alto california based facebook within 15 minutes 500 000 users had grabbed a name mein gott i thought to myself if 550 people a second are doing something they can t all be wrong so i immediately signed up actually this isn t my first experience with social networking since i did try orkut out some years back but somehow i didn t quite get the point either i was missing something or orkut was now i think i ve finally got it perhaps the technology has improved or perhaps i have as i said in one of my first postings ok this is just what i ve always wanted really a quick n dirty personal blog here we go boy am i going to enjoy this daniel dresner once broke bloggers down into two groups the thinkers and the linkers i probably would be immodest enough to suggest that most of my material falls into the first category my postings are lo o o ng horribly long but since i don t fit any mould and iam hard to typecast i also have that hidden linker part struggling within and desperate to come out which is why facebook is just great in addition on blogs like this i can probably only manage to post something worthwhile perhaps once or twice a month and there is news everyday so if you want some of that up to the minute breaking stuff and are willing to submit yourself to a good dose of link spam why not come on in and subscribe to my new state of the art blog you can either send me a friend request via fb or mail me direct you can find the mail on my roubini global page let s all go and take a long hard look at the future you never know it might just work posted by edward hugh at 12 28 pm 1 comment monday june 08 2009 are there really green shoots in turkey first off i would just like to say sorry to any readers this blog may still have i have been occupied these last months following the crisis elsewhere now i have finally found the time to take a look at turkey again this post is a work in evolution so please bear with me it is more like working notes which i will be constantly adding to over the next 24 hours but before i go any further let me put something completely up front i have a stake in turkey not a financial stake but an intellectual one turkey is an important test case does demography matter to economics or doesn t it if it does then what happens in turkey will be important since turkey s demographics are quite distinct from those to be found in other parts of eastern europe as i say in this post written less than a month after the sub prime crisis broke out in the united states at the start of august 2007 it may be surprising in the light of what i have just said if i now go on to suggest that it is precisely the fact that turkey may not be so badly ensnared in the trouble which is brewing i mean no one but no one will escape completely scott free as some other emerging economies and i am talking here about some key members of the eu10 accession countries and for reasons explained in this post which may well be of interest what do i mean by not so badly snared well in the first place turkey is still in a will she won t she situation as far as whether or not she will need to once more seek protection from the imf and apply for a loan in the second place when the recovery comes i would expect to see turkey rebound far more rapidly and sustainably than more of the eu12 group of european union accession countries so this is a clear test and i think it is important that people should try to see it that way in fact the turkish central bank recently presented some charts which seem to back my initial intuitions here the first left hand side shows the general jpmorgan embi bond index as compared with the turkey specific embi while the second compares the turkish lira try with a weighted currency index for central and eastern europe index czech republic croatia hungary lithuania poland romania slovakia and ukraine in both cases turkish performance is well above that of an average pupil please click on image for better viewing april output falls but may purchasing pmi in positive territory now the first thing to notice is how turkey has been directly affected by the global crisis and some of the best evidence for this is to be found in the fall in industrial output according to the latest data from the turkish statistical office industrial production dropped 18 5 year on year in april after a 20 9 fall in march economists expected a decline of 18 manufacturing was down an annual 20 6 while mining and utilities output were down 5 4 and 5 3 respectively in fact the biggest drop was in capital goods production which fell 41 8 there was however one bright spot month on month industrial output climbed 1 4 in april do we have a green sprout here certainly turkey s latest manufacturing pmi might give us some cause for hope since the index rose to 51 in may from 44 in april according to the markit economics survey only a whisk above the 50 dividing line but enough to put turkey along with india and china in that very illustrious group of economies where the industrial sector is now expanding some confirmation for the pmi comes from the monthly capacity utilisation survey see chart according to the may results the rate of capacity utilisation 70 4 was down by 12 points as compared to may 2008 but increased by 3 6 point compared to april capacity utilisation hit bottom in january february at 63 8 export slump part of the problem which has affected the turkish economy like many others has been the slump in world trade and the consequent decline in exports turkish exports fell in april by 33 3 to 7 576 million usd when compared with april 2008 while imports decreased by a massive 43 4 to 10 119 million usd on the year at the same time as can be seen from the second chart below the level of exports has now been more or less stable since the end of last year given the size of the export drop the goods trade deficit has been decreasing on an interannual basis and was down by 61 in april from april 2008 falling from 6 525 million usd to 2 543 million usd although it has rebounded somewhat from the february low point lira on the rebound turkey s currency weakened to 1 5432 to the dollar at 5 13 p m in istanbul last friday on the back of latvia worries down from 1 5332 a week earlier nonetheless it has still now gained 19 percent since early march following the sharp devaluation between september and november 2008 please click on image below for better viewing inflation stubbornly high turkey s consumer price index was up by an annual 5 24 in may and by 0 64 over april the producer price index fell in may however and was down by 0 05 on april and by 2 46 on may 2008 interest rates come down despite continuing inflation the central bank has now cut its benchmark interest rate by 7 5 percentage points in the past seven months largely because of continuing weakness in the economy and it is now at a record low of 9 25 percent despite the fact that industrial output fell by an average of 22 percent in the first three months of the year central bank governor durmus yilmaz said at the start of this month that he expected the decline to stabilize in the second quarter consumer confidence the consumer confidence index which was 74 77 in march increased by 8 to hit 80 75 in april despite the small recent increase the index is still at historically very low levels gdp contracts in the fourth quarter of 2008 gross domestic product was down by 6 2 compared to the same quarter of previous year domestic demand was down sharply as both private consumption and contracted strongly private consumption was down 4 6 year on year and machinery and equipment 25 3 please click on image below for better viewing exports fell 8 2 over q4 2007 while imports fell 23 as a result the impact from the trade balance was positive for gdp see below on the other hand industrial output construction activity and services all fell as can be seen from the next chart the car stimulus programme has been pretty important in the industrial output recovery especially since capital goods output is still down in the doldrums labour force survey turkey s working age population increased by 860 000 in february over a year earlier a fact which underlines the fact that turkey s population is still growing rapidly in fact it was up by 820 000 and reached 70 236 million while the working age population reached 51 360 million unemployment has been rising steadily and is now up from a low of 8 9 in may 2008 hitting 16 1 in february a total of 3 8 million people were officially classified as unemployed in february the number of those employed decreased by 85 thousand in fenruary compared to the same period of the previous year and reached 19 779 million agricultural employment increased by 206 000 and non agricultural employment was down by 291 000 turkish assets also fell last week on broader concerns about valuations in emerging markets and after u s economic data disappointed investors seeking signs of a recovery in the world s biggest economy bonds and the lira also weakened after may inflation was higher than expected and following thursday s announcement of an incentive package to lure investment and boost employment that may strain the budget and force the government to issue debt the main share index rose 1 4 percent to 34 750 19 last week it has now gained almost 28 percent this year the msci emerging equities index was up 0 69 percent emerging markets were shaken by a failed latvian government debt sale and fears that it will be forced to devaluate its currency the msci core index for turkey has now fallen 4 98 so far this month but is still up 38 18 over the last three months the bond market seemed to be focused on the lack of progress on the imf front prime minister tayyip erdogan on thursday said talks with the international monetary fund were continuing and unveiled new incentives including slashing corporate taxes and covering non wage labour costs to fight record unemployment and stimulate economic activity newspapers said the package could cost 60 billion lira the measures come despite concerns that increased spending will harm turkish debt dynamics and push inflation higher especially since the government has yet to agree on a loan accord with the imf a year after its last pact expired prime minister tayyip erdogan said on thursday his government would reject any move from the imf that it saw as political meddling turkey and the international lender have been negotiating a new loan accord for more than a year the government announced on thursday new incentives to fight record unemployment and boost the impoverished southeastern regions including corporate tax rate cuts and hand outs to large investments the government did not announce how it would finance the package it announced yesterday and this is disturbing the market turkey raised its official budget deficit target fivefold for this year to 48 3 billion lira the imf expects turkey s economy to shrink 5 1 percent this year after growing 5 9 percent on average in 2002 2008 turkish economy minister ali babacan said last monday the economy may shrink by more than a previously expected 3 6 percent this year as the world economy slows but will return to significant growth in 2010 turkey s economy which expanded by an average of more than 7 percent between 2002 and 2007 may have contracted by as much as 10 percent in the first quarter of this year as the global recession sapped foreign demand for turkish goods and led to record unemployment turkey suspended special consumption taxes for three months on cars white goods electronics and large houses on march 15 automotive companies have repeatedly urged the government to extend the breaks to encourage domestic consumption after their exports plunged in the global recession turkey s year long negotiations with the international lender have failed to produce an agreement and prime minister tayyip erdogan has said turkey would not concede on certain points like spending and can do without the funding if necessary babacan said that the government s budget would produce a deficit before interest payments for the first time in years amid rising government spending and declining tax revenue investors and economists say an imf deal which could be worth as much as 45 billion would help the government and private sector roll over debt payments coming due later this year after international credit markets dried up industrial production which has fallen for nine consecutive months picked up last month babacan also said government data on monday showed output fell 18 5 percent in april more than expected the current account deficit will fall to less than 10 billion this year from 41 42 billion in 2008 babacan also said as the slowing domestic economy saps demand turkey has been locked in fruitless negotiations with the imf since its last loan deal expired last year s may with both sides at odds over levels of government spending turkey s economy shrank 6 2 percent in 2008 s last quarter and economists expect a double digit contraction in the first quarter quarterly gdp data will be announced on june 30 unemployment has risen to a record high of 16 1 percent erdogan who said those aspects of the package related to labour would cost just under 1 billion turkish lira 648 1 million said this week he believes the economy will return to positive growth as early as this summer but the imf is more pessimistic and expects gdp to decline 5 1 percent this year unlike many western countries turkey did not resort to sweeping stimulus packages early this year as it hoped the turkish private sector s dynamism and the relative absence of household debt would help it emerge from the crisis earlier calls from european and american analysts for turkey to sign a deal with the international monetary fund are strengthened by similar advise from yoshihiko tamura a japanese analyst at the japan credit agency turkey needs foreign funding to close its widening budget gap he says yoshihiko tamur...