Turkey to ease establishment of investment banks: Şimşek

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency

Turkey will take steps to ease the process for the establishment of investment banks in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek said late on March 29.

“We will take further steps and make the establishment of investment banks in Turkey easier,” Şimşek said at an award ceremony in Istanbul.

Şimşek added that capital markets should be enhanced more.

“Development banks are an important instrument. There is also demand from outside ... We will take a number of steps to ease the entrance [of development banks in Turkey],” he said.

Şimşek added that the efforts of angel investors - wealthy individuals putting up their own money to back start-up or scale-up companies - have garnered results in Turkey.

“Maybe we have not yet reached a significant size, but numerically we are now top five [in the number of angel investors] in Europe,” he said.

Concerning the Turkish economy’s banner annual growth of 7.4 percent in 2017, Şimşek said this growth is “yesterday’s figures.”

“We need to look to the future. We need to provide a perspective for the upcoming period,” he added.