Erdogan appoints champion of low interest rates as new finance minister
Nureddin Nebati, who has fiercely defended the president’s low rate policies, has replaced Lutfi Elvan as Turkey's finance minister.
As Turkey’s economic crisis deepened, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan replaced his treasury and finance minister, a skeptic of the president’s unorthodox economic policies, with Nureddin Nebati, a champion of his low-rates policy.
A businessman turned politician, Nebati is a former member of the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association, a group that has consistently backed Erdogan’s adamant stance against interest rate hikes. He has previously served as deputy chair of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and headed financial and administrative affairs. A member of parliament since 2011, he was named deputy treasury and finance minister in 2018.
A decree published in the Official Gazette in the early hours of Dec. 2 indicated that Elvan “asked to be excused from his job,” ending the weeks-long saga about a deepening rift between the president and Elvan, who holds a graduate degree in economics from the University of Delaware.
During the Dec. 2 handover ceremony, Nebati made it clear that he would toe the line drawn by Erdogan. “Our most important priority will be investment and employment, not high interest rates,” he said. “We will take all necessary steps … to implement the policies determined by our president.”
