Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits Saudi Arabia on Monday in a three-stop tour of Persian Gulf states to seek trade and investment opportunities for Turkiye’s floundering economy.
Erdogan arrived in Jeddah accompanied by an entourage of some 200 businesspeople, according to the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkiye. He met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Al Salam Palace, shaking hands and attending a welcoming ceremony where he “expressed his happiness with this visit,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported early Tuesday.
Business forums have been arranged in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during Erdogan’s three-day trip.
The visit comes as Turks are hit with sales and fuel tax hikes that Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said are necessary to restore fiscal discipline and bring inflation down.
The official annual inflation rate stood at 38% last month, down from a high of 85% in October. Independent economists, however, maintain that the actual rate was around 108% in June.
Turkiye’s current account deficit reached record levels this year – $37.7 billion in the first five months — and Erdogan is hoping the oil- and gas-rich Gulf states will help plug the gap.
Last month the Turkish central bank delivered a large interest rate hike, signaling a shift toward more conventional economic policies following criticism that Erdogan’s low-rate approach had made a cost-of-living crisis worse.
His Gulf tour was preceded by Turkish officials including Simsek, Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz and central bank Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan holding talks in all three countries.
Ankara has recently repaired ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE following a decade-long rift. The split arose following the 2011 Arab Spring and Turkiye’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, considered a threat by some Gulf monarchies.