In a company, what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is doing with Turkey would probably be called a repositioning: addressing new customer groups, preparing the workforce for hard but better times, making the brand more visible.

That doesn't distinguish the president from a board of directors who sees how a business model is no longer viable and initiates innovations before the supervisory board throws him out.

Turkey will hold elections next year.

It is uncertain whether Erdoğan will survive this politically.

After all, he was able to record a success before the UN: Since June, Turkey is no longer called Turkey in English, but Turkiye.

The risk of confusion with a turkey is banned.

More important will be the economic benefit that the country, with its young, well-educated population between Europe and Asia, is drawing from the recent crises.

Not only as an extended workbench, but also as an increasingly important location for research and development.

Arab investors are needed

The doubts about the reliability of China as a production location that followed the pandemic and the supply chain problems in Asian trade are leading many companies to return to locations closer to the EU.

Turkey is on the short list.

This also applies to those companies that have left Russia - including Ukraine - whether voluntarily or forced.

This is happening against the background of NATO member Turkey's continued alienation from its key export partners Europe and America.

Instead, Erdoğan, also strengthened by military successes, is confidently turning to states with which he has long been at odds: Israel, but also autocratically governed states such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Economic interests are central here.

The Arab oil- and gas-rich states are small as export markets, but Turkey urgently needs them as investors.

Expensive energy imports are tearing a big hole in the current account, which even the tourism boom is unable to compensate for.

Since western central banks are reluctant to fill up the foreign exchange account, dollar loans from Arab, Chinese and other state banks are very welcome.

This also applies to Russia, with which Turkey is closely intertwined in the region.

Ankara condemned the attack on Ukraine and demanded that the occupied territories, including Crimea, be returned to Ukraine, which is also equipping them with combat drones.

Monetary depreciation eats through prosperity

At the same time, Turkey is dependent on gas, oil and grain from Russia.

It rejects the Western sanctions and even benefits from them because the country is developing into a hub for goods deliveries of all kinds to Russia.

As a self-interested person, Erdoğan maintains close contact with President Vladimir Putin.

So he helped to solve the blockade of Ukrainian ports for grain export.

This has also won him respect from those who scourge his war against the Kurds, the abuse of human rights and the persecution of opposition figures.

Putin's offer to turn Turkey into a gas hub is causing people to sit up and take notice – and thus tie them more economically.

Erdoğan has long dreamed of his country becoming a major gas hub.

But it takes years to lay new pipes from Russia through the Black Sea and into the EU, which in the long term wants to move away from gas for climate reasons.

In addition, it is not in the interest of the EU to promote new export routes bypassing Ukraine.

There is already concern that Russia could, to a certain extent, wash its gas via Turkey.

The debate about the gas hub is more likely to be one of the promises of salvation before the elections in mid-2023.

The disunity of the opposition is the biggest advantage of the president, who according to opinion polls is battered, the economic situation with the partly homemade highest inflation in two decades is his biggest disadvantage.

Inflation in November was 84 percent year-on-year.

This is the first marginal decline in a year and a half.

But that doesn't prevent the blazing fire of inflation from eating through the wealth the middle class has built, undermining the country's financial integrity and weakening the economic base.

Whoever wins the election: It can't go on like this in the long run.

Turkey needs an economic and financial policy restart.