Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the new ministers following his oath-taking ceremony on July 9. The ministers assigned to the Department of Treasury and Finance, Department of Industry and Technology, and the Department of Trade demonstrate that Turkey’s economy policies are to be managed with the direct intervention of Erdoğan.
While Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak was assigned as the minister of finance and treasury, Mustafa Varank was given the duty of managing incentive policies. Varank is a low profile figure having no experience of planning or industry. Foreign investors and analysts raised doubts about the assignment of Albayrak as the minister of finance, saying his close relation to Erdoğan is an unfavourable sign that Erdoğan is to have tight control over economic policies.
The new Trade minister Ruhsar Pekcan, on the other hand, is an engineer who is in the board of management at an engineering company. In other words, Pekcan is a direct transfer from the sector to the post of the ministry of trade.
Similarly, new vice president Fuat Oktay does not stand out with his expertise or experience in public management, but with his background as the corporate manager in companies like Turkish Airlines (THY) and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).
The background of these new ministers shows Erdoğan is to decide on financial resource allocation personally.
