NEWS SCAN for Turkey – Aug 1st, 2013

Down below you will find a summary of topics from major Turkish papers and internet sites.

Foreign investments in Turkish real estate sector doubled in 1st half 2013

It has been reported that foreign investments in the Turkish real estate sector have more than doubled in the first half of 2013, reaching 7,145 purchases up from 3,107 from a year earlier. The number of property-acquiring nationalities has also risen as the number of originating countries of the foreign realty buyers increased to 88 from 55 compared to the first half of 2012.

During the January- June period of 2013, a total of 7761 foreign nationals bought 7145 immovables, comprising 916 parcels of land and 6229 housing units, according to data from the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning.

Of the foreign property acquirers, Russians ranked first with a total of 1,388 acquisitions, followed by Britons with 720 and Germans with 653. Citizens of Gulf countries, who were barred from acquiring properties in Turkey because of the reciprocity principle in the country’s property law up until last year, acquired a total of 1040 real estates in the first half of 2013.

Opposition parties reject government proposal to abolish military courts 

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Tuesday vehemently opposed a government proposal to abolish military courts, submitted to the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission, but keeping military courts comes at a high price to the detriment of democracy and fair trials, experts warn.

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the latest meeting of the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission, which is currently drafting a new constitution for Turkey to replace the current one that was introduced after the 1980 coup d’état and bears militaristic overtones suggested abolishing the military judiciary entirely. However, the MHP and CHP insist military courts must stay, while the only backer of the government party on this issue is the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

Ford Otosan invests USD 31 million in Turkey’s largest auto engineering center

The joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Turkey’s Koc Holding is ramping up engineering activities in Turkey as a part of its new global strategy “One Ford”. The company has broken ground for a new research and development facility at Sancaktepe, Istanbul, set to be Turkey’s largest facility focusing solely on automotive design and development.

Costing USD 31 million, Sancaktepe Engineering Center will unite Ford-Otosan’s existing engineering capabilities in Turkey in a single facility. The company has been running design and development operations for a number of years in its three plants in Turkey. The Gebze Engineering Center, opened in 2007, will continue to function after the Sancaktepe Engineering Center becomes operational next summer.

“The new engineering center is critical for Ford’s ‘One Ford’ strategy as Turkey is a key manufacturing center for Ford-branded commercial vehicles marketed in Europe and elsewhere.”, Ford Europe’s Vice President of Product Development, Barb Samardzich said at the ceremony.

Turkey earns USD 6.9 billion from tourism in first half

One of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, Turkey, earned USD 6.9 billion from its millions of visitors in the first six months of the year. The revenue from tourism, oftentimes called the industry without a chimney, rose 28.4 percent from the same period of 2012.

Turkey’s foreign visitors, constituting 84.6 percent of arrivals in the country between January-June period, spent an average of 817 dollars while Turkish nationals living abroad, accounting for 15.4 percent of the visitors, spent 1389 dollars per head, according to recently released Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data.

The Mediterranean nation attracted a total of 31.8 million foreign visitors in 2012, achieving a total revenue of USD 23.4 billion. The country aims to welcome 48.5 million tourists a year between the years 2014-18, according to the government’s 10th 5-year development plan, generating USD 45 billion of tourism income.

Majority state-owned Halkbank posts net profits of TL 1.4 bln in first half

Halkbank, which is also Turkey’s sixth largest bank, posted net profits of TL 1.428 billion ($739 billion) in the first half of the year on Thursday.

The bank’s deposits also went up by 2.8 percent to TL 82.2 billion in the first half compared to the second half of last year. Noting that the bank ranks as one of the most productive banks in Turkey with its stable growth rates and high profitability of its equities, Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan said in a press release, “Our bank, which has grown by 20 percent in the past five years, is proud to carry the market value of the bank higher in the international arena.” He added that the bank is also preparing to open a London branch in the near future.

Halkbank posted a net profit of TL 715.1 million ($376 million) for the year’s second quarter on July 24, a rise of just under 1 percent compared to the same period of last year.

01.08.2013
SOURCE: MEDIA

We do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.