Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at June 20th, 2008

Turkey is at a crossroads in the economy and important problems need addressing, said the United Nations Development Fund, or UNDP, chief Kemal Derviş yesterday.

Speaking at the Turkish Industrialists’ And Businessmen’s Association, or TÜSİAD, executive board meeting yesterday, the architect of Turkey’s economic recovery after the devastating 2001 crisis, Derviş said he would focus on economic matters and it was impossible for him to address political matters. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 17th, 2008

Foreign direct investments, which have traditionally focused on Turkey’s finance, real estate, telecommunication, retail and media sectors to date, are now orienting toward ready wear.

Ayaydın Group, the owner of ready wear brands such as İpekyol, Twist and Machka, signed a 50-50 partnership agreement with Italian textile giant Miroglio.

Ayaydın, which has been in contact with the Italian firm since last year, aims to collect 230 million euros in consolidated turnover with 300 stores by the end of 2012. The aim of the group is to become a world brand through this cooperation, said Yalçın Ayaydın, founder of İpekyol. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 17th, 2008

A record number of high-level bureaucrats, government ministers and businessmen from Turkey and Asia-Pacific countries will gather today to celebrate the official opening of the Turkey-Asia Pacific Foreign Trade Bridge 2 at İstanbul’s WOW Convention Center.

Organized by the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON) and supported by Turkey’s Foreign Trade Undersecretariat and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the summit will mark the occasion of growing business relations between Asian countries and Turkey in recent years. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 17th, 2008

A new report has revealed that Turkey’s exports of motor vehicles to Russia grew by 116 percent to $697.6 million in the first five months of the year compared to the same period last year.The report from the Automotive and Sub-Industry Products Exporters’ Union (UTAYSİB) noted that total exports from the automotive sector increased by 46.14 percent to $11.3 billion between Jan. 1 and May 31.

Turkey exports motor vehicles and spare parts to a number of countries in Europe, Central Asia, North America and Africa. Germany, France, Italy and Britain last year topped the list of countries importing motor vehicles and spare parts from Turkey. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 14th, 2008

The first answer to Turkey’s call for Arab countries to grow crops in Turkey in order to form strategic crop reserves came from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia unveiled its plans to develop large-scale overseas agricultural projects to secure food supplies and revealed that they were in discussions with Turkey, Ukraine, Pakistan, Sudan, and Egypt according to a report published in the Financial Times on Friday.

“The Saudi government plans to set up projects of at least 100,000 hectares in several countries to grow crops such as wheat, corn, rice, soybeans and alfalfa, a feed for livestock,” Abdullah al-Obaid, the Saudi Arabian deputy agriculture minister, was quoted as saying by the FT. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 14th, 2008

Just as Turkey looks as if it is shaping up to become the next major holiday-home and investment destination, its government has stopped title deeds being issued to foreigners.

The country did it for six months in 2005, too, in an attempt to prevent large tracts of rural land being bought up. The latest ban – announced in April and awaiting ratification in parliament – has a similar purpose, limiting foreign ownership to 10 per cent of the land in any town.

Agents selling in Turkey expect the restriction to be lifted soon. “I don’t see it as a problem, as you could never expect to receive your title deeds within three months anyway,” says Julian Walker from Turkish property specialist Spot Blue. “For anyone buying now, the suspension will have ended by the time they reach completion.” (more…)

Posted by meb at June 14th, 2008

Turkey’s Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan said that the “Bogazici” and “Fatih Sultan Mehmet” bridges of Istanbul would be privatized.

Lawmakers were discussing the draft law envisaging the privatization of highways and bridges in Turkey.

Speaking at the meeting Unakitan said such privatizations were of great importance taking into consideration the economic structuring and transformation process Turkey was going through currently.

“The highways, which would be privatized by way of ‘transfer of operating rights,’ were located on 6 main routes and the total length of such roads reached 1860 km,” he added. (more…)

Posted by meb at June 14th, 2008

In what analysts see as a major vote of confidence for the Turkish economy, General Electric (GE) has decided to move all managing operations in the eastern and African growth markets (EAGM) to İstanbul.

Officials from GE Healthcare and Turkey’s Investment Support & Promotion Agency said at a joint press conference on Friday that GE Healthcare, a $17 billion healthcare business, has decided to combine the EAGM region into a single “International Diagnostic Imaging” operation and conduct its activities from İstanbul. The company will split a major part of its operations from its London center and move it to İstanbul. The company’s Western European operations will still handled by the London center.

With this new move, GE Healthcare will coordinate all its operations in 80 countries in four major regions — Central Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Africa — from its İstanbul center. Richard di Benedetto, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, International-EAGM will be overseeing the company’s operations. The EAGM region accounted for more than $600 million in revenue in 2007 and is expected to double the figure to $1.2 billion by 2010 thanks to the new structuring. (more…)