President Erdoğan speaks: Emphasis on 'wealth inequality'

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the Albaraka Islamic Finance Summit held at the Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Center in Istanbul.

Erdoğan's statements:

Turkey, which serves as a bridge between East and West, has begun to play the same role among financial markets. The Istanbul Financial Center has become a symbol of this vision of ours.

In recent years, our world has been going through a process of radical transformation. The foundations of the economic, military, and political systems are being shaken more violently with every new development. Balance has been lost in the international system, uncertainty has increased, and instability and chaos have become the dominant colors of the world. Before the wreckage of the pandemic could be cleared, the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, and the Gaza crisis was added to it. Gaza has laid bare the helplessness of the global order. The unjust and distorted character of the structures tasked with maintaining order in the world has once again been revealed. Currently, there is no institutional mechanism in the world to protect the oppressed. As Turkey, we have been drawing attention to this situation for a long time. Our assertion that 'the world is bigger than 5' shows the urgent need for the system to change. In this day and age, when the world has turned into a massive village, borders and distances cannot protect us.

"THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM HAS TURNED INTO A STRUCTURE THAT EXPLOITS THE REAL SECTOR"

"There can be no peace or tranquility where there is no justice. There can be no democracy or freedom where there is no security. The elites of the global system ignore and turn a deaf ear to this picture. If we, as humanity, want both ourselves and our children to live in a prosperous world, we must stop insisting on the current system instead of seeking solutions. We must all join hands to establish a more inclusive system. The challenges leave none of us any other alternative. The financial system has now turned into a structure that exploits the real sector. After the 2008 crisis, the financial architecture based on debt and interest did not take the necessary steps to eliminate the causes that gave rise to the crisis."

EMPHASIS ON "WEALTH INEQUALITY"

"Today, wealth inequality has reached its highest level in history. The richest 1 percent in the world owns almost half of the total global wealth. The share of the bottom 50 percent from the distribution does not even exceed 1 percent. There is a wealth transfer occurring at the global level from the poor to the rich."

MESSAGE ON GOLD AND FOREIGN CURRENCY KEPT UNDER THE MATTRESS

"Islamic economics considers justice, morality, sustainability, social welfare, and the environment, in addition to economic growth and development. An integral part of this economy is Islamic finance, or participation finance as it is called in Turkey. The pioneer of participation finance in our country is Albaraka Türk, which was established in 1984. We have a culture of off-the-books savings, known as 'under the mattress'.

Our people save a portion of their income during difficult days; they save. And they do this with gold and, unfortunately, foreign currency. We all know that gold and foreign currency kept under the mattress do not make an active contribution to the economy. We have always desired for savings kept under the mattress to be brought into the economy. We have made calls, but we have not been fully successful in this. Our institutions have not been able to develop convincing products for bringing gold kept under the mattress into the economy. Prejudices against participation finance have not been broken."

"TARGET OF 15 PERCENT SHARE IN BANKING FOR PARTICIPATION FINANCE"

"In our country, participation finance is mostly seen as the evaluation of savings according to religious sensitivities. We believe that this is not sufficient in terms of the potential and needs of the Turkish economy.

Participation finance offers great opportunities in terms of financial independence. It is important that we make maximum use of this. We aim to increase the share of participation finance in banking assets to 15 percent in the short term."

News Source: AA