From where to where…

“What time do we go when we go to the bathroom? 1 million pounds. Remember, those were the days. We said what happened, we arrived, let’s take these six zeros. We discarded six zeros, 1 million toilets fell to 1 lira. Have we seen today? That is the point! The one who knows business is the one who wields a sword.”

AKP President and Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised the course of the economy with these words at his party’s Giresun provincial congress on March 25, 2018. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Public toilet fees increased to 5 lira.

THE BREAD WAS 1.25 TL AT THE TIME

The cost of the new economic model, which the government put into practice at the end of 2021, was high. While the Turkish lira reached its lowest level ever against foreign currencies, the monster of inflation broke the back of the Turkish people. The fire in the bazaar grew, and the purchasing power of 1 lira almost disappeared. In 2018, when Erdogan gave a speech, the price of 250 grams of bread in Istanbul was 1 lira and 25 kuruş.

Photo: SÖZCÜ

Yesterday, at the olive counter set up in a public market on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, we put a piece of olive, whose weight is 178 lira, on the scales. The price of 8 grams of olives costs 1 lira and 42 kuruş. In Turkey, where five years ago 200 grams of bread was bought for 1 lira and 25 kuruş, today you cannot buy even an 8-gram olive.

The price per kilogram of the same olive was 28 lira in November 2020 and 88 lira in November 2022. In the last 10 months, the price of olives increased more than 100 percent and reached 178 lira.

This photo was taken yesterday in Istanbul.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE OLIVE?

Yes, this year the prices of olives and olive oil are following an abnormal evolution throughout the world. Due to the ongoing drought in Spain, the largest producer of olives, prices have risen to record levels. Nationwide, growers are having a hard time with rising costs.

Both the increase in packaging prices and the increase in transport costs due to increases in fuel prices cause an increase in prices. Producers claim that even if world prices come back, there will not be a serious drop in prices due to rising costs in Turkey.