Dış borçlanma sürecinde Türkiye

Abstract

ÖZET Dış borçlanma, kalkınmanın gereği olan yurtiçi sermaye birikiminin düşük seviyede olmasından, teknoloji yetersizliğinden ve ithalat fazlası-ihracat eksikliği nedenlerinden kaynaklanan bir olaydır. Bu nedenle `Dış Borçlanma Sürecinde Türkiye` ana başlığı altoda yapılan çalışma, ülkenin ekonomik kalkınması ve dış ticareti ile ilişkisi de ele alınarak incelenmiştir. Osmanlı Devleti'nin Kırım Savaşı'nın finansmanı için batılı ülkelere başvurmasıyla başlayan dış borçlanma süreci, günümüzde de güncelliğini koruyarak hala devam etmektedir. Dış Borçlanma en temel tanımıyla gelişmekte olan ülkelerin gelişmiş ülkelerden sağladığı dış kaynak olarak tanımlanabilir. Yatırımların yurtiçi tasarrufları aşması durumunda dış kaynaklara başvurulmakta, dış kaynak ihtiyacı ihracat ve ithalat arasındaki ithalat lehine meydana gelecek farkla kapatılabilmektedir. Dış borçlar ile ekonominin diğer göstergeleri arasındaki ilişki `Dış Borç Göstergeleri` denilen oranlarla belirginleştirilmiş olup, bu oranlar için kesinleştirilen kritik değerler ülkenin borçluluk durumun hakkında bilgi verebilmektedir. Ayrıca dış borçlanmanın gittikçe karmaşıklaşan bir yapı alması etkin ve güvenilir bir borç yönetiminin gerekliliğini ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Türkiye'nin 1980-1996 dönemi gelişme süreci incelendiğinde dış borçlanmanın temel göstergelerinden olan toplam tasarruf-yatırım farkının sürekli açık verdiği, tasarrufların yurtiçi yatırımları karşılamada yetersiz kaldığı görülmektedir. Türkiye'nin Toplam Dış Borçlan 1980 yılında cari dolar bazında 15.81 milyon dolar iken 1990 yılında 49.04'e yükselmiş, 1997 yılında ise toplam dış borçlarımız 82.17 milyon dolar olmuştur. Toplam borçlar içinde kısa vadeli borçların payı 1980 yılından sonra sürekli bir artış içindedir. İncelenen dönemde Dış ticaretin sürekli açık verdiği, ithalatın ise ihracattan daha hızlı arttığı izlenmiştir. Yurtdışından sermaye ithalinin milli gelir üzerindeki etkisinin çok olumlu olmadığı, elde edilen potansiyel fazlanın çok verimli alanlarda kullanılmadığı, bu fazlanın borç servisi ödemeleri için yeterli olsa da, mevcut dış borçların sürekli artma eğilimi ile aşınmaya maruz kalabileceği gözönünde bulundurulmalıdır. Bu durumda yurtiçi tasarrufların ve ihracatın artırılmasını sağlayıcı önlemler alınmalı, etkin bir borç yönetimi kurulmalıdır. Dış borçlanmadan sağlanan getiriler verimli alanlarda değerlendirilmeli, borçlanmanın maliyetinin elde edilen kazancı aşmamasına özen gösterilmelidir. Aksi halde dış borçlanma, ekonomide kaldırılması çok ağır bir yük haline gelecektir.

SUMMARY Governments borrow from external sources when revenues fall short of expenditures. The purpose of this paper is to analyze `External Borrowing Period of Turkey` together with economic balances and external trade. We criticised government's debt strategy and warned against the difficulties the economy may face in the near future in our research. So many definitions can be made for external debt. One of them is as follows: `The commonly used narrow definition of external debt includes all medium term and the long term debt (of one year or more) owed by the public sector to non residents. A broader definition adds short-term public sector debt, direct investment and private sector debt (both short term and long term). Definitions become complicated because the distinction between different types of external obligations such as loans, grants and direct investment is not always clearly discernible. It is also defined concerning the financial aspect of debt in External Debt by IMF, The World Bank, The Bank for International Settlements and OECD: Gross external debt is the amount, at any given date, of disbursed and outstanding, contractual liabilities of residents in a country to non-residents to repay principal, with or without principal` (UGAN, 1997, s.19) External debt is concerned with outstanding balances of contractual liabilities. The key data elements that must be tracked in an external debt accounting system are disbursed debt outstanding undisbursed balances and arrears. These are stock items in the sense that they represent amounts due or receivable at a moment of time. The flow data are loan commitments, disbursements, interest payments, cancellations and write-offs. VlllExternal debt accounting principles were defined by the World Bank when it established its Debtor Reporting System. These concepts are similar in many respects to the principles for the preparation of balance of payments accounts, national income accounts public finance and monetary accounts. Each of these accounting records contains elements that relate to external debt. In the last few years, the rapid expansion of the foreign debts coupled with the steep rise in the real interest rates on the international money markets. It does not only threaten Turkey's credit- worthiness but impose severe constraints on the domestic policies the government may follow to attain its objectives of growth and price stability. At the end of 1980, total external debt of Turkey amounted to $15.8 billion representing 27.8 percent of Gross National Product (GNP). At the end of 1987, total external debt increased to $40.3 billion or 59.1 percent of GNP and at the end of 1997 increased to $82.2. Noting the fact that the debt/GNP ratio of the countries with recent debt servicing problems was in the range of 50 percent of their GNP's. So, it's striking to see how Turkey has managed during the 1980's to maintain high output growth. With the increase in total amount of external debt, Turkey's debt burden has increased substantially. But, up till now, Turkey was able to meet its debt service obligations on a timely basis. Lately, the government has tried to move away from short-term to medium and long-term borrowing. But during 1987, the proportion of short term in total debt continued to increase. Beside its volume, significant shifts have also occurred in the term structure and the shares of various borrowers in total outstanding volume of debt. Over the 1980-1987 period, the share of short-term debts in total has steadily risen. Also debt/GNP ratio has increased considerably over the period 1980-1987 and 1987-1996, it remained at about %40. It's because the cross-currency exchange rate fluctuations caused changes in the value of external debt. A substantial part of Turkish external debt is denominated in currencies such as Mark and Yen. As a result, the dollar value of the total debt has been affected. After 1988, the debt stock has stabilized. The jump in stock in 1990 is in the formshort debt increase and was stimulated by the domestic policy mix and eased by the liberalization of capital movements since August 1989. Comparison of the Turkish debt/output ratio with those for the developing countries, it reveals the seriousness of the situation. On this account Turkey has moved in line with the average for the countries that the IMF classifies as `countries with recent debt servicing problems`. It's notable that the rapid increase in external debts has not so far led to erosion of Turkey's credit-worthiness in international money markets. In addition to the external debt developments in Turkey, balance of payments developments, would give a better intuitions for borrowing requirements from abroad. Current account deficit was around $3 billion from 1985 to 1987. In 1988, the deficit narrowed down to $1.6 billion due to the slow-down in economic activity and as a result of diminishing trade deficit and strengthening of tourism and workers' remittances, then in 1991 current account gave a surplus of $226 billion. However, due to net capital inflows in 1992, the official reserves increased by $1.5 billion. Later, the current account deficit reached $6.9 billion in 1993. Turkey's credit-worthiness in international money markets imposes restrictions on the current account. Empirical analysis suggests that current account deficits of 2- 2.5 percent of GNP are feasible for Turkey. Current account deficit/Gross National Product ratios of more than 2.5 percent are found to be not compatible with maintaining Turkey's creditworthness. So, fiscal policy adjustment is necessary to restore consistency with a growth oriented external debt strategy. How foreign borrowing affects macroeconomic stability can be best understood in the context of production, consumption, savings and investment. In an economy where there is a foreign trade, production includes goods for export, imports are a supplement to domestic production. Thus total production plus imports comprisesgoods and services for personel consumption, for investment, for government use or for export. There is a relationship between production and income. Simply, production creates incomes equal to the value of input. Some income is taken by government in taxes, some is saved by the private sector, the balance is spent on consumption. Foreign borrowing is the excess of imports of goods and services over exports and net borrowing creates debt. In the absence of foreign borrowing, private sector investment plus government spending is limited by the level of private sector savings and taxation. Economic growth, of course, could be accelerated with foreign borrowing, permitting imports to exceed exports and at the same time, investment plus government expenditures to exceed savings plus taxes. If a country borrows abroad, it must pay interest on the outstanding debt and, as debt increases, interest payments needed to service the debt also rise. Thus, it is crucial that external borrowing leads to an icrease in productive capacity. Not only must be an expansion of goods for domestic needs but also of exports to finance interest and amortization payments on the foreign debt. In carrying out a debt-reduction operation and moving to a higher debt-stabilizing real growth rate, higher growth is achieved is an increase in the resource inflow to the nation. That is to say, higher growth should be accompanied by a decline in the surplus of net exports of goods and services. Ideally, this fall would come preponderantly through an increase in imports of capital and intermediate goods, rather than through diminishing exports. The process should therefore be helped along by trade liberalization as appropriate. There are standart indicators for measuring the burden of external debt: the ratios of the stock of debt to exports and to gross national product and the ratios of debt service to exports and to government revenue. Although there is widespread acceptance of these ratios as measures of creditworthiness, there are no firm critical levels which, if exceeded, constitute a danger for indebted country. XIWhen considering an external borrowing program a government must bear in mind that projected net export earnings must be sufficient to accommodate. To manage debt effectively, authorities must project time profile of debt service obligations. They must accurately forecast export earnings, domestic revenues and future access to finance. They must also monitor the potential for pre paying or refinancing their debt to take advantage of new borrowings on better terms. Governments must view foreign borrowing in the framework of overall economic policy. External debt problem rarely arise when policies are chosen so that key economic variables convey true economic costs to decision makers. Borrowers must choose the best combination from the available sources of external finance to suit the needs of the economy as a whole. For individual projects, the objective is to maximize concessional finance, maximize the amount of loans that can be rolled over and minimize the debt service payable during the project's gestation period. National concerns include the appropriate currency composition of debt and the impact of new borrowing on the structure of total debt servicing obligations. Our research examines the external borrowing period of Turkey together with economic balances and external trade. In addition to the historical debt sustainability analysis, standart ratios are calculated for the revealing Turkey's external debt position and durability towards these debts. It has been found that the current debt policy in Turkey is sustainable but there is a liquidity problem due mainly to high interest payments. However, any percentage change in growth performance may disturb the economy and chance all the results we have found. xn