A group led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci, enthusiastically supported by exporters behind the scenes, has declared war on the “interest lobby.”

This new "combat group" is called the “foreign exchange lobby," whose members want to lower the value of the Turkish currency so that they can increase exports. Zeybekci says that to increase exports and discourage imports the exchange rate must be 2.15-2.25 Turkish lira to the dollar (it's currently about 2.12).

The theory is that if the local currency is weak against foreign exchange, exports will increase and imports will decrease; thus, narrowing the foreign trade deficit would be partially correct. But it's not wise to link export increases solely to foreign exchange parity because there is another built-in regulator: the market.

It's not possible to lower the interest rate and lower the value of local currency by disregarding the market. The market moves according to the facts and reacts strongly to superficial interventions. That is when governments have to respond by increasing interest rates. We cannot forget how on Jan. 28, to control market fluctuations, the Turkish Central Bank was forced to increase interest rates by 5.5 points at once.