Bill for Istanbul Finance Center to be issued soon: Minister

ANKARA

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A law on the Istanbul Finance Center (IFC) will soon be issued, Finance Minister Naci Ağbal has said, adding that the center will offer many opportunities to attract investors. 

“We need to offer various advantages to investors. We have now been examining what other centers offer and exchange views with our stakeholders. We will soon issue a legal framework, namely the Law on Istanbul Finance Center, we hope,” he said in an interview with Anadolu Agency. 

The framework will include which incentives, tax and other advantages and guarantees will be offered to investors, he said Oct. 22. 

“It is not enough to build the buildings or to invite investors to the center. If we want the Istanbul Finance Center to become an ambitious project, we need to offer what other centers offer, even more,” said the minister. 

Earlier Oct. 15, a break ground ceremony was held for new buildings for the Istanbul International Finance Center, Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency and Capital Markets Board in Istanbul.

Queried as to whether there was a slowdown in the regulatory framework for the project, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said on Oct. 15: “By the time the buildings become ready, we will create the regulation framework. This framework will aim to create goodies to attract investors to Istanbul.”

As global financial investors have seen several negative steps taken against them in some destinations, as exemplified by the U.S. Congress’ recent bill that will allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s concerns, they will seek new safe places to invest, according to Yıldırım.

“In this vein, we are speeding up the Istanbul Finance Center project,” he said. 

Ağbal also noted that the government had adopted a number of new instruments in a bid to diversify the financial markets in years, from Islamic finance to Turkey’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. 

“There are of great importance in terms of spreading the capital to grassroots and fostering savings in the long term,” he said, adding that the legal framework for the sovereign wealth fund will be completed by early 2017. 

A law to establish the fund intended to boost annual growth over the next decade was published in the country’s Official Gazette late August, as Anadolu Agency then reported. 

After the defeated July 15 coup attempt, the Turkish government in August introduced a bill to parliament to setting up a wealth fund to keep growth on track and reassure investors unnerved by the upheaval.

Financing for the fund, which aims to lead annual growth of 1.5 percent over next decade, will be provided by government asset sales, cash surpluses from the state privatization fund and other state institutions, the draft law reads.