Number of Turkish millionaires rises due to exchange rates

The number of Turkish millionaires has further increased as the rich get richer by turning the economic crisis into an advantage through exchange rates while the working people get poorer amid soaring inflation low payments
Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:43

The number of Turkish millionaires has reached up to 166,025 at the end of July 2018 according to data of Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), showing that the workers get poorer while the rich get richer due to the economic crisis.

The bank deposits of the millionaires, living both in Turkey and abroad, has escalated to $167,7 billion in total while it was around $141,5 billion at the end of 2017. The data shows that every Turkish millionaire possesses $1 million on average.

The number of the millionaires living in Turkey has increased from nearly 127 thousand to around 149 thousand between January and July 2018, while their bank deposits have reached up to $151,8 billion in the same period.

As $69,1 billion of total bank accounts is in Turkish liras, $82 billion is in foreign currencies while $662,7 million is based on precious metal deposit accounts. The number of Turkish millionaires has increased by 4893 to 16,904 in July while their bank accounts are around $15,9 billion.

According to Forbes 2018, the fortune of Turkey’s wealthiest 100 people is over $15,53 billion, let alone their corporative assets apart from “individual” richness. The total turnover of Turkey’s top 500 countries has reached from $6 billion to $25,3 billion between 2002 and 2016 while the country’s foreign debts have increased from $17,7 billion to $70,4 billion in the same period under the rule of Justice and Development Party.

Although the dollarization stands as one of the biggest problems of Turkey, even the İstanbul Stock Exchange (BİST) gained at least $393,5 million in the last three years through changing foreign exchange deposits despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's and his government's hypocritical call for buying Turkish lira.

As the Turkish lira has witnessed a record freefall against the US dollar and the Euro in 2018, the rich class has become richer by means of increasing exchange rates, let alone the government-sponsored bailout operations, while the working people pay the price of economic decline. Considering Turkey’s high dependency on imports, the inflation in consumer prices has skyrocketed in defiance of the working class.