Turkey crisis turns books into a vanishing luxury – Times of India

Istanbul: Turkish doctoral student Gulfer Ulasi saw the first version of her favorite Thomas Mannu Published collection for 33 lira.
She found a second print of the same two-volume set, which was selling for 70 lira (about $6 at the latest exchange rate) at her Istanbul bookstore months later.
example of jump debilitating unpredictability Due to Turkey’s raging economic crisis on almost all aspects of daily life, from shopping to education and culture.
Publishers fear it could also destroy an industry that offers a rare voice of diversity in a country where most of the media follows the president. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s socially conservative government.
“I’m a PhD student in international relations, so I read a lot. I spend about 1,000 lira every month on books on my reading list, although I also download from the Internet,” Ullas said.
“The prices of books are skyrocketing.”
– Mandatory on books – Turkey’s book industry is almost entirely dependent on paper imports, one of the loopholes in Erdogan’s economic experiment on his country of 84 million people over the past few months.
Erdogan has broken the economic rule book by planning sharp interest rate cuts to bring down long rising consumer prices.
Economists struggle to remember the last time a large country did something similar because cheap lending is widely believed to have caused inflation not to cure.
Turks’ fears about a further erosion of their purchasing power prompted an increase in gold and dollar purchases that wiped out nearly half of the lira’s value in a matter of weeks.
Rapid losses forced Erdogan last week to announce new currency support measures, reportedly backed by heavy exchange rate interventions, that have managed to erase a good portion of the slide.
Some economists see this as a long-term solution. The lira now regularly gains or loses five percent of its value a day.
Haluk Hepkon, owner of Kirmizy KD Publishing House, says he fears all this uncertainty will “force people to put aside buying essentials and buying books”.
“You publish a book, and let’s say it becomes a hit and it costs 30 lira. And you go to another edition in a week and the price goes up to 35 lira,” Hepcon told AFP.
“Then for the third or fourth printing, only God knows how much it will cost.”
– pay the price- Turkey’s last official annual inflation reading was 21 percent in early December, a figure opposition parties claim is being under-reported by the state.
The next report on January 3 is almost certain to show a big jump as the lira erupted, raising the price of imported energy and the raw materials needed to make paper.
Applied Economics Professor Steve Hanke Johns Hopkins University Calculates Turkey’s current annual inflation rate at over 80 percent.
Turkish Publishers Association President Kenan Kokatürk said global supply chain disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic have contributed to his industry’s problems by raising the price of unbleached pulp.
Turkey imports raw materials because its own paper mills have been privatized and then largely closed.
“Only two of them are in production, while the others’ machines were scrapped and their lands were sold,” Kokatürk said.
“Turkey is paying the price for not seeing paper as a strategic asset.”
– Resistance- Publishers are already trying to mitigate the risk by planning to print fewer books in the coming year.
Heretic Publishing House says it will not print some books “due to the increase in the exchange rate and the extraordinary increase in the cost of the paper”.
Robert Koptus, editor of Aras Publishing House, said he was concerned because the printers represented the voice of ideological “resistance” in Turkey.
“Almost the entire press speaks in one voice and universities are being silenced,” Koptas said.
“But culture is just as important as food, and perhaps even more so given the need for educated people to deal with the economic crisis,” said Hepcon of Kirmizy KD.
Enthusiastic readers like Ibrahim Ozke say the crisis is already preventing them from buying their favorite books for friends.
“I was told that the book I wanted now cost 38 lira. I bought it for 24 lira,” Ozke said.
“They say that this is due to the lack of paper in the market, which does not surprise me. Everything is imported into Turkey now,” that fume,

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