Interesant, nu stiam
ca Romania a devenit tara cu cea mai mare bancnota din lume dupa ce Turcia a
taiat sase zerouri din lira.
Vali
09.11.2005 Sunday - ISTANBUL 14:05
Operation Completed
It has been eight months and eight days since our
transition from the Turkish lira (TL) to the new Turkish lira (YTL), after
dropping six zeros. The zero-dropping operation that had been discussed for many
years, but could be not put into practice, has finally been realized and the YTL
is circulating through our hands and pockets. The transition process has been a
success.
There is no threatening flaw. Concerns and
predictions about inflation soaring due to the rounding factor, the possibility
of a devaluation, transaction chaos, difficulty in getting used to the new
currency and its finding its way into the black market, fizzled out. All related
establishments, the Turkish Central Bank, in particular, administered the
process with success. Turkish citizens, on the other hand, got acclimatized to
the new era in a short time and adapted the new currency. Some encountered
problems during transitions stemming from miscalculations, or inadvertently
writing TL instead of YTL and similar situations.
The transition period will be completed in three
months. According to a statement made by Turkish Central Bank Governor Sureyya
Serdengecti, banknote transitions have reached the 91-percent level so far. In
other words, the new currency makes up 91 percent of the banknotes in
circulation at the moment. This is extremely good in terms of efficiency and
rate, when compared with other zero-dropping operations in the world. It is
observed that transition is rapid and high particularly for big valuable
banknotes; however, the circulation rate of TL 1 million and TL 500,000, which
is 65 percent, is a little bit low. Our citizens and banks should be more
sensitive about this issue.
Naturally, coin transition is slower than
banknotes. Only 39 percent of the old coins have been collected so far. The
remaining is still in the market, nevertheless, since the circulation of more
coins with YTL 1 divisional coins was agreed upon at the beginning of 2005,
coins circulating in the market at the moment amount to 82 percent. Increasing
the amount of coins in circulation, that was YTL 131 million at the end of 2004
to YTL 435 million, has been realized during the new era. Because the greatest
loss is incurred in returning small valuable coins, achieving a 100 percent in
coin transition does not seem possible. Small coins are not given much
importance anyway.
With the YTL, the Turkish currency has not only
regained its reputation in the world, it has also regained prestige at home. By
curbing inflation, the euro and dollar are not gaining much value against the
YTL, and even their losing value consolidates confidence in the new
lira.
While the YTL gained 9.8 percent against euro from
the day of it went into circulation on January 1, 2005 until the end of August,
it lost 0.8 percent against the dollar. Losses caused by inflation was 2.87
percent. This is a record for Turkey that lived with a chronic inflation for 35
years. Some countries whose currencies have many zeros, cautiously followed this
successful operation as well. One of them is South Korea. What attracted
attention in South Korea is that there wasn’t any positive or negative influence
on the basic economic parameters despite the removal of zeros.
The other is Romania, that became the country with
the biggest banknote in the world after Turkey dropped six zeros. We may say
that Romania benefited from Turkey’s zero-dropping experience and also followed
Turkey’s example. Romania, which launched the new leu after dropping four zeros
in July, unlike Turkey, began implementing double price tags after six months.
According to Zaman’s Bucharest correspondent Hayri Gul, Romania watched Turkey’s
transition closely and the Romanian people discussed the transition for a long
time. Some television channels even broadcast the transition live at night. Many
Romanian journalists who came to Turkey reported on the examining
process.
The TL will disappear completely from circulation
by the end of the year. Only the Central Bank will be able to change the old
banknotes after this. The “new” tag on the YTL will also be dropped within a few
years and the TL will be used again. The design and quality of the banknotes,
that do not present abundance among themselves, will most probably change with
this transition. Yes, the YTL transition is about to be successfully completed.
Now is the time to preserve the value and prestige of the new currency for many
years to come. Hence, political and economic stability are an absolute must in
order to accomplish this.
September 9, 2005
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