Turkish opposition Good Party (IP) leader Meral Akşener Wednesday unveiled her party's 2023 presidential election pledge that puts forward a project that promises cash-free economic and commercial relations and aims to digitally transform the country.
"Artagan," will provide Turkey with a resource of TL 300 billion ($34.56 billion). Like its name, which means abundance in an old Turkic language, she said "it is a very important milestone on the road to bringing abundance and fertility to our country."
Artagan is a new ecosystem based on a cashless society and "is the 21st-century name for the Revenue Administration," said Akşener.
The project outlines an autonomous financial auditing network that ensures all financial recording and auditing is done through artificial intelligence (AI) through thousands of pieces of software and tax professionals.
"With the data-sharing network to be established between financial institutions and Artagan, credit card transactions, money transfers, foreign exchange transactions, securities investment transactions, international money transfers, cheques-promissory notes, the data of futures receivables/payers reaches Artagan and is recorded with a closed-loop blockchain," the IP leader explained.
It will then prepare instant financial statements for Turkey's 83 million citizens and the millions of businesses with this data.
"The formation of the financial statement provides a very clear assessment of the economic situation of that person or business," Akşener said.
When Artagan goes online, all financial data will be converted into a "measurable" format, making financial crimes, under-declared incomes and errors in records traceable by algorithms.
"In this way, all the hoses that feed the informal economy will be cut, and most crimes or financial mistakes will be prevented before they occur. Many financial crimes, such as counterfeiting, smuggling, plastic bills, false statements, which cause hundreds of billions of losses in the economy, will become history," Akşener said.
Artagan, Akşener went on to explain, also offers the country the opportunity to transition to an income-based and fair tax system.
"We have prepared Artagan intending to reveal Turkey's true potential," Akşener said.
"While Artagan will provide a resource of more than TL 300 billion to our state's budget, it will also provide additional deposits of over TL 500 billion to our financial system."