Turkey may not need loans from the International Monetary Fund to help strengthen its economy, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said.

“Going forward of course we hope that Turkey will be strong enough not to have to need, to tap into international financial institutions’ resources,” Şimşek said in an interview with Bloomberg in London Wednesday.

Turkey has tackled the effects of the global financial crisis without new lending from the IMF, even as the economy shrank the most since World War II and falling tax revenue drove the budget deficit six times wider than originally planned.

“We’ve gone through the worst and Turkey has been able to finance its deficit at historically low interest rates,” Şimşek said. Spending plans for next year are “realistic” and financing “should not be an investor concern.”

Winning IMF support for the government’s economic program isn’t “make or break,” Şimşek said. Fund backing would be an “insurance policy,” he said.

The two sides have been discussing a new lending program since a $10 billion accord ended in May last year