Monetary Fund: The earthquake left a significant impact on the Turkish economy

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday that public debt in some countries in the Middle East and North Africa is a cause for concern, and that governments need to enhance resilience through fiscal policies to protect against shocks.

Georgieva told the Public Finance Forum of Arab Countries in Dubai that the Kahramanmaraş earthquake, which devastated large areas of Syria and Turkey, "caused a huge tragedy for individuals, but it also caused a very big impact on the Turkish economy," and she continued, "Therefore, we must develop more flexibility." in the face of these shocks.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund predicted that economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa region would slow to 3.2% this year, before picking up to 3.5% in 2024.

And last Thursday, the international credit rating agency, Fitch, said, "It is difficult to estimate the economic losses that occurred after the devastating earthquake (in Turkey) due to the developments in the situation. However, they may exceed two billion dollars, and could reach 4 billion dollars or more."

In a report, the agency ruled out that "disaster bonds" would be significantly affected, given that the covered earthquake risks are mostly limited to the Istanbul region.

The share of the affected regions in the gross domestic product is about 9.3%, which is equivalent to 76 billion US dollars, according to the figures of the official Turkish Statistics Institute. These figures also show that these regions contribute 14% to the agricultural output, 11.2% to the industrial output, and 1 % of the tourism sector, and 8.5% of the total Turkish exports.

The areas affected by the earthquake are among the most important production centers in Turkey, and the ten affected Turkish states include 151 companies among the 500 largest industrial companies in Turkey.

For its part, Bloomberg News Agency reported last Thursday that the losses covered by insurance will be much less - about one billion dollars - due to the lack of insurance coverage in the affected areas.

In a statement to Al-Jazeera Net a few days ago, the Turkish political writer Yusef Katabi Oglu (who is also a businessman) expected that insurance companies would incur initial compensation that may amount to one billion dollars, indicating that there are an estimated 7 thousand to 8 thousand buildings that have been destroyed, most of them insured.