Turkey: Revenues from Privatization Totals upto $50 billion

The Turkish state has earned more than $42 billion through privatizations in the last quarter-century, according to data compiled by the Anatolia news agency from the Privatization Administration.

The data showed that privatization revenue last year totaled almost $3.9 billion, while so far in 2011 they have reached the level of $277 million.

Almost half of all privatizations were conducted as block sales between 1985 and 2011. Turkey earned nearly $20.2 billion through block sales, $12.7 billion through asset/facility sales, almost $8 billion through public offerings, $1.2 billion through sales at the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The Treasury earned almost $4.4 billion through sales of half-completed facilities, the data showed.

As of Dec. 31, Turkey’s net revenue from equity and asset sales, which were partly in foreign currencies and partly through installments, amounted to $31 billion.

Currently, there are 25 state assets at the stage of privatization. In 12 of these, the public share is over 50 percent. Besides, some 415 real estate properties, 52 facilities, three ports, eight highways, two bridges over the Bosphorus in Istanbul and the license rights of chance games are pending privatization processes that are expected to start, given the right market conditions.

May 20, 2011
SOURCE: HURRIYET DAILY NEWS