President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey on Saturday called for stronger global cooperation, new policy tools, and more resilient supply chains to revive international trade. He made the remarks during the G-20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Erdoğan said today’s challenges affect all economies, not just the least developed countries. He noted that trade’s contribution to global growth has weakened, and stressed the need to reinforce international rules that support development. He urged members to reaffirm their commitment to the World Trade Organization’s principle of special and differential treatment.
The president highlighted that global debt has reached 324% of global GDP, while Türkiye’s debt ratio stands at around 89%. He said this relatively low level gives Türkiye the fiscal room to speed up structural transformation and direct additional resources toward investment, a flexibility many low-income economies lack.
“These countries are effectively trapped between high financing costs and shrinking fiscal space,” Erdoğan said, adding that Türkiye supports a fair and equal approach to debt restructuring, especially for low-income countries.
He urged the G-20 to take greater responsibility in building a more inclusive global economy. Erdoğan also warned that global development aid, which fell by 9% in 2024, is expected to drop by up to 17% in 2025, creating ‘significant losses’ for Africa.
Erdoğan said Türkiye places strong emphasis on developing sustainable development financing models for the least developed countries by mobilizing local resources.
The Turkish president is attending the two-day G-20 summit in Johannesburg, which began on Saturday and focuses on some of the world’s most urgent economic and development challenges.
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