Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at June 9th, 2007

Coffee Republic, the famous British coffee chain, will start operating on Turkey this summer by opening two cafes in Istanbul’s Suadiye and Nişantaşı districts. The chain aims to open 20 stores in Turkey in the future.

After Starbucks and Gloria Jean’s, which open new branches one after the other, famous British coffee chain, Coffee Republic, has decided to open cafes in Turkey. The chain is expected to have stores all over the country after opening the first in Istanbul’s Suadiye in July and the second one in Nişantaşı. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 9th, 2007

The telecommunications market in Turkey is expected to grow by 12 percent to $14 billion this year compared to 2006, according to a progress report compiled by the Turkey Investment Advisory Council.
It is also expected that that the information technology market will increase by 25 percent to $4.4 billion. According to the report the number of mobile phone subscribers rose to 52.6 million last year, which is 70 percent of the whole population. In fact, the number of ADSL broadband Internet subscribers was 1.5 million in 2005, surging to 2.4 million in 2006 — a huge increase of 60 percent. The overall number of Internet users reached 16 million and the number of computers that have Internet access was around 80,000. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 9th, 2007

Britain’s largest insurer Aviva and Sabanci Holding have agreed to merge their Turkish life and pensions businesses to create the country’s largest pensions provider with a 25 percent market share.Total annual pension contributions and life premiums for the venture are expected to top £500 million ($997 million) after five years, with total assets under management of £2 billion, the two sides said on Friday. The joint venture will also enter into an exclusive long-term bank assurance agreement with Akbank, in which Sabanci is a key shareholder, adding distribution through Turkey’s second largest privately-owned bank to Aviva’s (more…)

Posted by meb at June 9th, 2007

The privatization process for the Salıpazarı-Karaköy Cruise Port Complex — commonly known as the Galataport tender — is presumed to start up again soon.The Privatization Administration (ÖİB) had completed a provisional building development plan for the region and, two months ago, sent it to the High Commission for Monuments — a state institution that analyzes projects to determine whether they carry the potential of inflicting damage on cultural assets located in the area. The privatization process will resume if the commission (more…)

Posted by meb at June 4th, 2007

Digiturk, Turkey’s largest pay-television provider, is set to become the latest foreign business to list in London with a $1.5 billion (£757 million) flotation.
The company has appointed banks, understood to include Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse, to advise on an initial public offering in Turkey and Britain. It is believed to be seeking to float around 30 percent of the group in a deal expected to value the entire company at around $1.5 billion. The proposed flotation comes one year after Providence Equity Partners, the (more…)

Posted by meb at June 4th, 2007

Both consumer and producer price indexes have kept their downward inclination in May, giving way to single-digit levels again after three months.
Monthly inflation in May rose 0.5 percent compared to the previous month in the consumer price index (CPI) and 0.39 percent in the producer price index (PPI). According to the latest figures released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (Turkstat) yesterday, annual inflation therefore, became 9.23 percent for the CPI for the period between June 2006 and May 2007. On the 12-month moving averages basis it was 10.24 percent. The annual (more…)

Posted by meb at June 3rd, 2007

New discounted labels of food products have started to hit the shelves in stores as the value added tax on some foods was reduced to 8 percent from the former 18 percent. The new law came into effect on June 1. Customers expressed their pleasure with the lower prices, but they stated that they were expecting the tax reduction to cover all food categories and cleaning supplies. Customers also pointed out that similar changes had caused discounts for short times in the past, but prices were (more…)

Posted by meb at June 3rd, 2007

The Turkish Central Bank released its May financial stability report on Thursday, focusing primarily on the general structure of the financial sector.
The report showed foreign interest in the financial sector as continuing to grow, with the foreign share of the Turkish banking sector reaching 38.8 percent, comprising direct foreign shares, which increased to 22.4 percent with the latest takeovers in April, and a 16.4 percent ownership in stocks traded on the stock exchange. The total asset volume of the financial sector was YTL 567 billion at the end of 2006, 20 percent higher than in 2005. (more…)