Turkish minister stresses need for social security reform

Nicosia, Jan 17 : Kemal Unakitan, the Turkish Minister of Finance, speaking last week in the town of Eskisehir, stressed the need for the reform of the country's social security system.

"To save its future, Turkey has to proceed to the reform of its social security system," he said.

Unakitan admitted that Turkey was passing through a period of transition and said that several sectors were changing dramatically.

"Agriculture is one of these changing sectors. When the Islamist AK Party came to power, the agriculture sector accounted for 35 percent of the total. Now it has dropped to 26 percent and will continue to decrease. This is a normal development," he said.

The percentage of people employed in the agricultural sector continues to decrease as more and more people find gainful employment in other sectors. According to government statistics, around three million new jobs have been created in the non-agriculture sector.

Unakitan said that Turkey's economy recorded great progress in the past five years and integrated with global economy. He proudly said that for the first time in 35 years, inflation dropped to single digits and at the end of the year the consumer price inflation was 8.39 percent.

ANI