Low debt level makes Turkey more flexible, İşbank says

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey’s relatively low debt makes the country’s economy more competitive and flexible in the face of
volatility in the global markets, a top executive from Turkish lender İşbank said yesterday.

“Turkey has [great] flexibility thanks to its low debt ratio,” said Adnan Bali, general manager of İşbank, speaking at a meeting with businesses in Istanbul. Turkey’s gross domestic product growth rate could be nearly at 4 percent by the end of this year, Bali predicted.

“Turkey shows fast reflexes towards the changing patterns of the global economy,” he said. Noting the Turkish economy learned how to benefit from risk and volatility in the global markets during the last economic crisis, he said that Turkey’s share in global trade still falls behind many countries at 1.6 percent. Still, Turkey’s exporters might benefit from the country’s ability to supply products at a faster
pace to meet the unique demands of buyers.

Credit volume grew 43 pct Bali noted that manufacturing value-added products is crucial to sustaining Turkish economic growth. “We will continue to support Turkey’s industry and trade,” Bali said. Bali said that İşbank’s credit volume grew by 43 percent last year compared with 2010. The lender’s total credit volume rose to 91.6 billion Turkish Liras last year from 64.3 billion liras in the previous year.

“The nearly 27 billion liras İşbank saw in credit growth alone is almost equal to the size of the average
Turkish lender,” Bali said, noting that 80 percent of those credits are commercial credits. “When we were setting the growth target, we decided that we would grow more than our competitors and the
growth would be healthier,” said Bali, adding that the bank’s strategy worked efficiently, and that İşbank’s non-performing loan ratio dropped to 2.1 percent last year from 3.6 percent in 2010.