Coup Costs Turkey Economy $100 Billion: Minister

ISTANBUL,(APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Augst,2016) - The foiled coup attempt seeking to unseat the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cost the Turkish economy 300 billion lira ($100 billion/90 billion euro), the trade minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Customs and Commerce Minister Bulent Tufenkci was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet newspaper the heavy price tag may even go up but insisted that Turkey's economic fundamentals were solid. "Warplanes, helicopters, weapons, bombs, buildings: 300 billion lira.

Maybe I am underestimating a bit," he said, referring to the heavy destruction on the night of the coup. "It might go up even more," he said. But the minister warned that the entire picture should be seen in a medium-term context even if some investors had been put off in the short-term. "The putschists made Turkey seem like a third world country," he fumed.

"They (investors) are not coming after the images revealed tanks were deployed on the streets, parliament was bombed," he said, adding that some foreign orders had been cancelled in the wake of the coup.

But Tufenkci said despite all this Turkey had managed to control the situation. "Had the coup taken place in another country, markets would not have opened earlier than in a week," he said.

The coup took place on Friday July 15 but financial markets in Turkey opened as normal after the weekend. "The interest rates didn't rise extraordinarily. The stock exchange's losses have been limited.

There's no need to revise growth or export figures. The nation has stood firm." The government has suspended annual leave of public sector personnel in the wake of the coup attempt, blamed by the government on supporters of US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.