On May 9, 2022, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced three new housing finance support packages. In the first support package, citizens who will buy a house for the first time will be provided by a housing loan with a maturity of up to 10 years and an interest rate of 0.99% for newly-built houses worth up to 2 million Turkish Liras. In the second support package, on the condition that citizens convert their savings in foreign currency accounts opened before April 1, 2022 into Turkish liras, or sell physical gold to CBRT for at least half of the value of the house, a housing loan with a maturity of 10 years and an interest rate of 0.89% will be provided for houses worth up to 2 million Turkish Liras. In the last loan package, a resource of 20 billion Turkish lira was allocated for the construction projects of which at least 40% have been completed and 50% have not been sold as of May, provided that eligible companies will not change the house prices for a year.
On September 13, 2022, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced a social housing project which aims to help low-income citizens own houses and tackle problems regarding property prices and rents. The target is to build 500,000 social housing, and 50,000 workplaces, also provide 250,000 residential land plots, in 81 provinces in five years covering 2023-2028.
On September 4, 2022, the Government announced the Medium Term Program covering the 2023-2025 period (the “2023-2025 Medium Term Program”). In the 2023-2025 Medium Term Program, the GDP growth target is 5% for 2022 and 2023, 5.5% for 2024 and 2025. According to the Medium Term Program, the Central Government budget deficit to GDP ratio target is 3.4% for 2022, 3.5% for 2023, 2.5% for 2024 and 1.5% for 2025. The EU-defined general government debt stock to GDP ratio, which is expected to be 36.7% in 2022, is projected to be 35.2% in 2023, 33.6% in 2024 and 32.1% in 2025. The current account deficit to GDP ratio target is 5.9 % for 2022, 2.5% for 2023, 1.4% for 2024 and 0.9% for 2025. The CPI inflation target is 65% by the end of 2022, 24.9% by the end of 2023, 13.8% by the end of 2024 and 9.9% by the end of 2025. The unemployment target is 10.8% for 2022, 10.4% for 2023, 9.9% for 2024, and 9.6% for 2025.
TOURISM
In September 2022, the number of foreign visitors visiting the Republic increased by 55.84% to 5,475,453 people as compared to the same month in 2021. Tourism revenues increased by 103% and reached U.S.$24,482,332,000 in 2021 compared to 2020. According to the TURKSTAT, in the first quarter of 2022 tourism income increased by 122.4% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached U.S.$5,454,488,000.45 billion. In the second quarter of 2022 tourism income increased by 190.2% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached to U.S.$8,717,103,000. In the third quarter of 2022 tourism income increased by 27.1% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached U.S.$17,952,361,000.
EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES
In August 2022, seasonally adjusted total civilian employment was 31.014 million and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate was at 53.0%, which represented a 0.4 percentage point increase compared to previous month.
As of September 2022, the total asset value of the Unemployment Insurance Fund amounted to approximately TL 115.98 billion. As of September 2022, 84.95% of the Unemployment Insurance Fund was invested in bonds and 15.05% of the assets were held in deposits.
As of August 2022, there were 383 pension funds offered to the public. As of August 2022, the total net asset value of these funds increased to TL 340.2 billion from approximately TL 188.9 billion in August 2021.
FOREIGN TRADE AND BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
In September 2022, the trade balance posted a deficit of approximately U.S.$9.595 billion, with a 268.1% increase compared with September 2021. In September 2022, total goods imported (c.i.f.), including gold
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