Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was in for a nasty surprise as he gave a lecture to students at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. One protester hurled a shoe at the IMF chief and another one tried to unfurl a banner. Both were detained. Answering questions from students, Strauss-Kahn says the IMF ‘will be there when Turkey wants it to be’

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, was greeted by a shoe-thrower during his speech to students at Istanbul’s Bilgi University on Thursday. The shoe missed the IMF chief and hit a student who was asking Strauss-Kahn a question.

The protester, Selçuk Özbek, was detained for a couple of hours and then released. He was working at the socialist Birgün newspaper, according to local media. After the incident, Zeynep Çatalkaya, a student, tried to open a banner but was stopped by security forces.

As the protesters were taken out of the venue, another group protested the IMF and the government by shouting slogans such as, “Go away IMF,” “IMF is the thief, AKP is the collaborator.”

On its Web site, Birgün newspaper published the story with the headline, “IMF beat it!” (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

Turkey does not have to sign a new loan deal with the International Monetary Fund, Mehmet Büyükekşi, president of the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly, tells reporters at a meeting to disclose Turkey’s September export figures. The country’s exports dropped 30.5 percent to nearly $8.39 billion for the year as of September, according to TİM data

Signing a new deal with the International Monetary Fund is not a must for Turkey’s recovery process, said Turkish Exporters’ Assembly, or TİM, President Mehmet Büyükekşi during a press conference held to announce the country’s export figures.

Turkey’s export figures dropped 30.53 percent to nearly $8.39 billion in September compared to the same period last year, Büyükekşi announced Thursday in Uşak, a city in the interior part of the Aegean region. The nine-month export total declined by 32.67 percent to $68.896 billion, Büyükekşi said. The country’s year-on-year export slipped 28.89 percent to $94.283 billion. However, the country’s exports increased 9.36 percent in September from a month earlier. (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

CeBIT Bilişim Eurasia, the region’s leading digital business and technology expo, will open its doors in Istanbul on Oct. 7.

Thousands of professionals, managers, scientists, public authorities and tech geeks from around the world are expected to visit the fair, which will be held at the TÜYAP Fair Center in Beylikdüzü. Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım will also attend the opening ceremony. This will be the fair’s 10th year.

“CeBIT Eurasia 2009 expanded in terms of the number of exhibitors and foreign participants, despite the global turmoil,” said Orkunt Yozgat, the fair director of Hannover Fairs Interpro International Fairs, or HİFAŞ , the event organizer. CeBIT Eurasia was presented Thursday in a press conference at Istanbul’s Swissotel. (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

Turkey’s Central Bank said its monetary policy committee has discussed slowing the pace of an 11-month series of cuts to the benchmark interest rate.

The bank isn’t convinced by signs of economic recovery and decided to maintain its easing bias, it said in an e-mail statement of the minutes of the Sept. 17 meeting in Ankara.

Still, there’s a growing belief that the worst of the crisis has passed and “it’s appropriate to adopt a flexible policy and consider the possibility of slowing the reductions,” it said.

The bank lowered the benchmark rate by half a percentage point to a record 7.25 percent at the meeting, taking total reductions over the last 11 months to 9.5 percent, the biggest of any G-20 nation. Gross domestic product is likely to contract 6.5 percent this year, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts announced Thursday. (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

Turkey’s economy may shrink 6.5 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, said in a report Thursday, revising a previous outlook to predict a deeper recession.

The IMF’s prediction exceeds the government’s estimate of a contraction of 6 percent this year and is more than the 5.1 percent shrinkage the fund predicted its World Economic Outlook in July.

“The government last week revised down its own growth assumption for 2009 to minus 6 percent, with 3.5 percent growth forecast in 2010, so the IMF’s latest forecasts are more or less in line with the official view,” said Tim Ash, chief of Europe, Middle East and Africa research at Royal Bank of Scotland in London, wrote in an e-mailed report to investors.

“A 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent growth rebound seems optimistic in our view, given the global context still, albeit with a minus 10 percent print for the first quarter of the year, the low base period effect should kick in.” (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday that the global economy is recovering faster than expected and estimated a 3.7 percent growth rate for Turkey in 2010, after a global recession cause the country’s economy to contract 6.5 percent this year.

The fund said in its latest World Economic Outlook that it expected the inflation rate in the country to stand at 6.2 percent this year before increasing to 6.8 percent in 2010. The report estimated that Turkey’s current account deficit to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio would increase to 3.7 percent in 2010 from 1.9 percent this year.

According to the twice-yearly outlook, which was announced in İstanbul ahead of the upcoming Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group and IMF, the world economy is poised to grow by 3.1 percent in 2010 with much of the recovery driven by emerging economies such as China and India. That is up from the 2.5 percent in the IMF’s previous set of estimates. And for this year, the IMF now projects a 1.1 percent decline in the global GDP instead of the 1.4 percent contraction it predicted in July. (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

Turkey’s quota in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to increase to more than 1 percent, giving Turkey the opportunity of getting more financial aid at a lower cost under new reforms which are expected to be high on the agenda of this year’s meeting of the fund, IMF sources were reported as saying on Thursday.

Turkey’s ad hoc quota currently stands at about 0.6 percent after it was increased from 0.45 percent during the annual meetings of the IMF-World Bank in 2006. Another twofold increase is expected to take place in this year’s meeting of the fund, increasing the quota from 1 to 1.5 percent. (more…)

Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009

An increasing number of people believe Turkey has reached a point where it can overcome the ongoing global economic crisis without the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2009-2010 academic year at Dokuz Eylül University, Erdoğan noted that since the crisis broke out, everyone has made recommendations on how Turkey can best overcome it. “There were people who claimed that Turkey could not overcome the crisis without the support of the IMF. They were saying a deal should have been signed with the IMF immediately. But we ignored these people,” he said. Erdoğan pointed out that they refused to sign an agreement without reaching a satisfactory compromise that would benefit Turkey. He explained that Turkey had talks with the IMF and evaluated the institution’s recommendations in the economic and financial fields but would not tolerate any intervention in the political sphere. “Turkey is not like it used to be, when it used to hold talks with the IMF in the event of the smallest crisis and when it agreed to every condition proposed by the IMF,” the prime minister said. (more…)