Huge projects show Turkey’s ‘attraction’

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

WB official Raiser said big projects reflect the attractiveness of Turkey. AA photo

Turkey’s recent infrastructure projects, which will cost a large amount of money, reflect the attractiveness of the Turkish market, Martin Raiser, country director for Turkey of the World Bank, said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

Raiser stated that the companies, which made their bids, assumed that they could raise the necessary funding. “This is a large amount of money. I think it is good in many ways, because it reflects the attractiveness of the Turkish market. It is positive that Turkey is looking to moves like private financing for infrastructure,” he said during the interview, after the meeting where a report titled “Turkey: Management of Labor Markets during Economic Volatility,” prepared jointly by the Turkish Ministry of Development and the World Bank, held in Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul.

Regarding the third airport project, for which a Turkish consortium won the tender with an offer to pay the state 22.1 billion euros (plus taxes) over 25 years starting from 2017, he said, “We have five Turkish companies. They will need to raise a lot of equity. That will be a challenge. But they have bid and we hope they will be successful.” Raiser also noted that it was important for Turkey that these high profile international transactions be concluded successfully.

No rebalancing without decline in growth

Turkey’s growth rate fell to 2.2 percent last year from 8.8 percent in 2011, which was considered as “check” by some business environment. However, Raiser said 2012 was the year of rebalancing. “You cannot rebalance without having some declines in the growth rate. It was absolutely lower than we have expected but on the whole we were happy with the outcomes,” he said.