Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at April 26th, 2011

As the entire world is now struggling to decide if states’ efforts to develop nuclear energy should continue after what recently happened in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the March 11 twin earthquake and tsunami disasters, there is also an ongoing public debate in Turkey: People wonder if the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is doing the right thing as it seems determined to go ahead with its ambitious nuclear energy program. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 26th, 2011

The chairman of Turkcell, Turkey’s leading mobile phone operator, has started talks to resolve disputes after an annual general meeting last week, said the company in a filing with the Istanbul Stock Exchange, or ISE, on Monday.

TeliaSoner, 38 percent stakeholder in the company, said earlier Friday that the Turkcell board was in a deadlock after shareholders on Thursday failed to agree on removing Chairman Colin Williams and on a dividend from profits last year, Bloomberg reported Friday. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 26th, 2011

Some 2.1 million tourists visited Turkey in the first quarter of 2011, an increase over last year, the Turkish Hoteliers’ Federation, or TÜROFED, said last week, Anatolia news agency reported.

According to a TÜROFED tourism report, the first-quarter numbers for 2011 were 17.6 percent rise over last year’s figures of 1.8 million for the same period.

“The first-quarter figures indicate we can easily achieve our year-end target,” TÜROFED Chairman Ahmet Barut said at a press conference in Istanbul. Turkey received most of its tourists from Germany, Russia and Britain. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 21st, 2011

Amid recent debates over creating a domestic car brand in Turkey, a Turkish wagon company has already managed to produce a domestic train named the Anatolia.

The train will run on diesel, making it highly attractive for markets whose transportation system is mainly designed for diesel, the top official of Turkish Wagon Industry, Inc., (TÜVASAŞ), the producer of the trains, told Today’s Zaman.

The country’s first domestic diesel train Anatolia was put on the tracks during a ceremony on Tuesday in the northwestern province of Sakarya. TÜVASAŞ General Manager İbrahim Ertiryaki told Today’s Zaman that the latest available technology was used in producing the wagons, 85 percent of which were produced locally. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 21st, 2011

Ankara’s subway system, which has yet to be completed despite 10 years of construction and 814 million Turkish Liras of investment, will receive another 3.1 billion liras from the Transportation Ministry to finish the line, authorities have said.

Subway work between Keçiören and the train station, Kızılay and Ümitköy, as well as between Sincan and Batıkent, will be launched simultaneously and completed within two years, according to the ministry’s plans, Transportation Minister Habib Soluk told journalists Tuesday.

The 44.4-kilometer-long Ankara metro line will cost the ministry 3.17 billion liras, Soluk said. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 21st, 2011

Istanbul ranks among the poorest cities in Turkey by means of sustainability and habitability, according to a new survey. Eskişehir, Kayseri and Konya in Central Anatolia and the northwestern province of Bursa are the rising stars, the survey said.

In today’s global world it is cities and regions that compete, not the countries, said Mete Güney, general manager of MasterCard Southeastern Europe, during a Wednesday press conference to reveal the results of the survey.

“Under such conditions, evaluating the current situations in economic, social and environmental dimensions is crucial for cities to build their sustainable development plans,” he said. The survey was organized by MasterCard and Turkey’s Boğaziçi University.

The study is a result of data on 81 provinces in Turkey and surveys with business people from 29 specific cities. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 19th, 2011

A survey conducted among the 500 leading export and import firms in Turkey has shown that the export sector’s expectations for the future have improved by a large margin as a strong indicator of optimism.

According to the Foreign Trade Expectations Survey conducted by the Foreign Trade Undersecretariat (DTM) the Expectation Index both for exports and imports are up for the second quarter of this year. The Export Expectation index has gone up by 20.2 points, while the import expectation index climbed by 15.4 points quarter-on-quarter. Foreign Trade Minister Zafer Çağlayan shared the findings of the survey with the media on Monday in Ankara.

According to Çağlayan, the study showed that the first quarter’s export expectation index of 122.7 increased to 142.9 for the second quarter this year. Any value above, below or equal to 100 represents an upward expectation, lower expectation and neutral expectation, respectively. (more…)

Posted by meb at April 19th, 2011

The Turkish Central Bank will probably keep its benchmark interest rates at a record low until year-end and may extend higher reserve requirements for banks into 2013, according to Istanbul-based Türk Ekonomi Bankası, or TEB.

The Central Bank has cut interest rates by 75 basis points since December to help slow capital inflows, while increasing reserve requirements to cap growth in loans and contain the current-account deficit. The bank last increased the reserve requirement for one-month deposits to 15 percent from 10 percent on March 23. (more…)