NEWS SCAN for Turkey – Nov 14th, 2013

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

Turkey’s relations with Azerbaijan excellent, says PM Erdoğan

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated on Wednesday that Nagorno-Karabakh was not just Azerbaijan’s problem, but also Turkey’s problem and referred to bilateral relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan as excellent.

Speaking at a joint conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev following a meeting of the Turkey-Azerbaijan High Level Strategic Cooperation Council at the Office of the Prime Minister, Erdogan said that Turkey attached high importance to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem in relation to peace and stability in the Caucasus and reiterated Turkey’s unconditional support for Azerbaijan in terms of settling this issue through peaceful means.

For his part, Aliyev said that he was pleased to see Turkey getting stronger and expressed Azerbaijan’s full confidence in Turkey with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. The two countries signed various agreements including cooperation in fields of technology, science, industry and entrepreneurship.

DUNYA.COM

Moody’s report: Turkey to attain 5th hishest economic growth

The rating agency Moody’s has predicted that Turkey will rank the 5th in terms of growth among the 20 leading economies in the world in 2013. In its Global Macro Outlook, Moody’s estimates a growth of 3-4% in 2013 and 3.5-4.5% in 2014 in Turkey’s economy. China, Indonesia, India and Saudi Arabia respectively precede Turkey on the list of 20 countries. The estimations made by Moody’s exceed that of the Medium Term Program by the Development Ministry, which has predicted a growth of 3.6% in 2013 and 4% in 2014.

DUNYA.COM

‘Nagorno-Karabakh is Turkey’s problem too,’ says Erdoğan

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reiterated Ankara’s commitment to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, saying that “Karabakh is not just Azerbaijan’s problem, but also Turkey’s problem.”
Speaking at a joint press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday, Erdoğan noted that Turkey’s unconditional support for Azerbaijan continues and described current bilateral relations as “excellent.”

For his part, Aliyev said that Azerbaijan has full trust in Turkey when it comes to the case of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed enclave between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory in early 1990s, including Nagorno-Karabakh, primarily populated by Armenians, and seven adjacent provinces. Diplomatic efforts to find an enduring solution to the conflict have failed for the past 20 years but Azerbaijan vows to get its territories back by force, if necessary.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Malaysia’s Khazanah completes $252 mln stake buy in Turkey insurer

Khazanah Nasional Bhd , Malaysia’s state investment firm, said its insurance arm has completed the $252 million purchase of a 90 percent stake in Turkish insurer Acıbadem Sağlık ve Hayat Sigorta.
Avicennia Capital Sdn Bhd bought the stake in the İstanbul-based health and life insurer from Mehmet Ali Aydinlar and family and Dubai-based private equity firm The Abraaj Group, according to Khazanah in a statement late on Wednesday. Aydınlar will keep the remaining stake in Acıbadem Sigorta, Khazanah said.

Khazanah, along with Canada’s Sun Life Financial Inc , bought CIMB Aviva Assurance Bhd and CIMB Aviva Takaful Bhd from Malaysia’s second largest lender CIMB Group Holdings Bhd in April for $560 million, as the state investor seeks to expand its presence in the insurance sector. Khazanah’s insurance assets also includes ACR Capital Holdings Pte Ltd, which specialises in conventional and takaful reinsurance. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and CIMB Investment Bank Bhd were joint financial advisers to Avicennia Capital and Khazanah on the deal.

Turkey keen on attack helicopter program despite snags

Turkey signed a contract in September 2007 with AgustaWestland to co-develop and produce 51 attack helicopters with 40 options. The T-129 would be assembled in a TAI plant near Ankara

Turkey remains fully committed to a co-production program with Italian-British AgustaWestland for scores of T-129 attack helicopters despite “minor” technical snags that have delayed acceptance tests for an initial batch of nine choppers.

“It is perfectly normal to have problems during acceptance tests. We remain committed to this program. It is a matter of days or weeks before we find a solution,” a senior defense official said. “We want to have these helicopters in our inventory in perfect condition.”

The official said acceptance tests had been carried out on a double-check basis, both by the end-user, the Land Forces, and the quality check department of the defense procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM).

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Turkish government to regulate loans and credit cards more

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan has said the government has been implementing regulation three specific areas across the financial services sector, namely with regard to banking services, loans and credit cards; thee objective of the regulatory measures is to raise savings rates.

During a press conference held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Turkey’s private pension system (BES) he went on to say, “We have implemented a significant amount of regulation in this field. Now we have been working closely on three remaining areas. The banking watchdog (BDDK), Central Bank, Treasury and Development Ministry have also been in the process of leading an impact analysis of these projects. We’ll introduce more regulation in fields that we deem to possess a dangerous level of excessiveness.”

Credit volume will grow in a reasonable and balanced manner: Babacan

“If loans are issued to increase exports, production and investment, and, not to mention, to support small and medium size enterprises, we will say ‘yes’; however, we will say ‘no’ to loans that are issued for the sole purpose of increasing consumption, as the exhaustion of such a measure will only cause harm to our economy. We’ll therefore continue to implement more measures as required,” he noted.  Previous constraints that were placed the use and issue of loans for personal consumption purposes and credit cards had slightly narrowed the current account deficit, the Turkish economy’s main weakness, in addition to its need to focus on contributing more to the national nest egg, that is, improve upon its savings habits.

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Women employment on rise in Turkey’s urban areas

Some 1.5 million new jobs have been created in the last four years for women in non-agricultural sectors in urban areas, according to an employment report released by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) yesterday.

While some 3.4 million women worked in non-agricultural sectors in June 2009, this number increased to around 4.9 million in the first half of 2013, increasing by 44 percent in the four years, the report said. This increase was said to be partially caused by some social security incentives for employers who employed women, including the lack of social security premiums from workplaces for women who work for minimum wage, according to the report.

“Some dramatic increase has been seen in women’s employment specifically in the services sector. While there was very slightly in women employment in 2009, women employment increased dramatically in 2010 and 2011, when Turkish economy grew by around 9 percent, and even in 2012, when the economy grew by only around 2.2 percent. Non-agricultural women’s employment reached 4.9 million in June 2013,” the report said.

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

14.11.2013
compiled by Editor BTT,

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