Mr. Erçel reports on medium and long-term prospects for the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey Address by the Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Mr. Gazi Erçel, before the 66th Shareholders’ General Meeting, in Ankara, on 28/4/98. A detailed account of economic developments during 1997 is given in our annual report for that year which has already been delivered to you. We are keeping the public informed of our expectations for this year through the quarterly announcements of our monetary programme. Today, instead of repeating these short-term perspectives, I would like to speak of the medium and long-term prospects of the Central Bank. For the last two years, my discourse has touched on what kind of institution an ideal central bank should be. Today, I want to consider this matter in a more detailed way. In recent years, there has been a worldwide trend towards simplification of the goals of central banking. This has led to a reduction of the responsibilities they take on. Funding their governments, for example, is no longer the main purpose of central banks. There is none among the western central banks that aims at achieving full employment of the highest level of production. Today’s modern central banks have only one aim: to maintain price stability.
These conditions are currently met in a number of euro area countries, especially Germany. Page 3 sur 7 Allow me to add a paradox that is not sufficiently well known: to get out of the current low rate environment, we should not turn instinctively solely to monetary policy – as many do. In advanced economies, the natural rate of interest – the level that equates savings with investment over the long run – has fallen by around 2 percentage points in the last 20 years, and monetary policy has a very limited impact on this rate. Instead, what we need is to change the underlying economic factors driving the decline in the natural interest rate. Changing these factors means spending on investment and on the future, including on training and education, the energy transition and of course new technologies, with the aim of lifting long-term economic growth. If we want higher interest rates in the future, we must not be afraid to rapidly put in place targeted fiscal and structural policies. This brings us to the third cliché: other countries have gained more from the euro than we have. Unfortunately, this cliché is repeated everywhere, including in Germany.ii It is also paradoxical given that support for the single currency is currently at an all-time high in the euro area – 76% of European citizens support the euro, and the figure is even 81% for Germany. In reality, the euro has benefited all countries, including – and especially – Germany.