Hi again,

Welcome back to my money mutterings column. This time I’ll run through a few things that have caught my financial eye.

Turkey is the 5th Cheapest Country

This week I came across research that says that Turkey is the 5th cheapest country within the OECD. Who is OECD I hear you ask? Well, they are the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the heavy weights in the global economy. It includes 30 countries in total and Turkey is one of them. 

The recent study (September 2006) looked at comparative price levels amongst members. It concluded that Turkey was the 5th cheapest. The most expensive country was Iceland and the cheapest Hungary.

But what about the cost compared to the UK – something that many of us will be interested in. Well, the study showed that a basket of goods costing 100YTL in Turkey would cost 172 YTL in the UK – or put it another way 72% more in the UK. Of course, readers of Fethiye Times will already know this because of the annual price comparison that they feature. It showed in detail that prices were much cheaper than the UK for some items. More information can be found by clicking on our living guide - finance menu under our banner.

And before I forget here is a list of all the countries in the OECD:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Republic of Korea, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the United States.

The EU Ultimatum - A Risk to Savings?

Unless you’ve been stranded up a Turkish mountain the past few weeks you’ll know all about the EU ultimatum to Turkey to open its ports to the Greek Cypriots. For those of you that don’t know in simple terms the EU has given Turkey until 6th December to open its ports ‘or else’. The ‘or else’ could mean the suspension of talks to join the union or maybe its nothing but bluff. But, if a suspension goes ahead the financial markets are bound to react and the value of the Lira is likely to drop.

This leaves those of you with Turkish Lira in the bank earning good interest in a dilemma. Should you sell the Lira ahead of the decision on the expectation of a drop and protect your capital until the market settles or do you hold? Well, if I knew the answer to that I would be a rich man. My point is investing in the Lira can be risky as it is vulnerable to global and national affairs so it pays to actively manage your cash and keep abreast of affairs rather than just sit on it and hope for the best.

That’s all from me for now. And don’t forget ‘you need to work hard to make money so it follows that you need to work hard to save money’.