Turkish gov’t announces new plans to boost investment, ease doing business

ANKARA

The government has announced new schemes that officials hope will boost investments and ease doing business in Turkey.

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said the government approved an incentives scheme worth 128 billion Turkish Liras ($32.01 billion) for strategic investments.

“The cabinet recently approved a 128 billion lira incentive plan for strategic investments,” Yıldırım said in Ankara at a meeting on March 28 to announce the results of a Coordination Board to Improve Turkey’s Investment Climate study.

The authority to offer “open-ended” incentives to investors in seven key sectors deemed of strategic value and highly dependent on imports was given to the cabinet last year.

The economic administration hopes to address Turkey’s widening current account deficit in the medium-term through the latest measures.

‘Reducing red tape’

“We will soon announce more details of this scheme,” Yıldırım said, adding that the cabinet would send a comprehensive package to parliament aiming to ease doing business, increase investments, increase exports, boost employment and battle inflation.

“We have been working on a new package comprised of 67 articles to send to parliament very soon to attract new investments to our country,” he added, saying the reforms aimed to “decrease bureaucratic obstacles for businesspeople.”

“In the past it used to take almost one month to launch a new enterprise. We have now shortened this to almost to one hour. We can make it even shorter,” Yıldırım said.

Fees paid by entrepreneurs to start new businesses have also been cut to almost a quarter, while customs fees for businesspeople will also be slashed, he added.

Yıldırım said the number of bureaucratic procedures to receive construction permits would also be reduced from 18 to six, while almost all related procedures will be carried to the online environment.

In a bid to avoid the abuse of bankruptcy rules, Yıldırım said businesses will no longer be allowed to apply for suspension of bankruptcy, adding that a “mechanism has been developed to recover companies.”

The prime minister also stressed that by the end of this year “all interactions between the state and citizens will be able to take place through the online portal e-Devlet.”