Amid claims that Turkey is facing an economic crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday said they will not forgive those businessmen who try to take their money outside Turkey, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“Those who prefer to transfer money abroad not for increasing and developing investment, trade and business but only for getting the funds outside the country, sorry, but they will not be forgiven,” Erdoğan told the Foreign Economic Relations Board’s (DEIK) general assembly in Istanbul.
Rejecting calls from businessmen to lift an ongoing state of emergency, Erdoğan said the government would extend the state of emergency for a 10th time if necessary.
Turkey’s central bank withdrew gold reserves it had held at the US Federal Reserve and deposited them in the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England amid a political crisis with the United States, Hürriyet columnist Uğur Gürses said, citing a central bank report.
The reserves totaled 28.6 tons, Gürses wrote in a column last week. Additionally, banks in Turkey have increased their reserves with the central bank in gold rather than foreign currency, putting 38.3 tons in the Bank of England and 63.8 tons in the central bank’s accounts at the Istanbul Stock Exchange.