The Turkish stock market gained 1.9 percent in morning trading on Friday, November 16 on news that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would consider new loans of $10 billion for the crisis-hit country.
The national index surged by 211 points, or 1.9 percent, to close the morning session at 11,405 points. IMF chief Horst Koehler said in Washington on Thursday that he would recommend to the board of directors to grant $10 billion dollars (11.36 billion euros) in loans to Turkey under a new stand-by deal to resist the economic fallout of the September terrorist attacks in the US.
The Istanbul stock exchange had already risen by 5.2 percent on Thursday amid widespread expectations that fresh foreign cash was on the way for Turkey, the only mainly Muslim nation in NATO, which has emerged as a key ally in the global fight against terrorism.
The optimistic climate has also boosted the embattled Turkish lira against the dollar. On Friday the Central Bank sold $20 million for 1,512,500 Turkish lira, reflecting continuation in an improvement trend in recent days. The rate meant an overall depreciation of 54.4 percent since February when Turkey abandoned a pegged exchange regime amid a severe financial crisis.
Overall depreciation had at times reached around 60 percent in the wake of the turmoil, which bungled a 1999 recovery scheme backed by the IMF. In May Ankara began implementing a new recovery plan and will have received a total of $15.7 billion in aid by the end of the year from the Fund and the World Bank.
The new IMF loans of $10 billion will be aimed at bridging a financial gap that has emerged amid global economic strains and has threatened Turkey's recovery program, which Koehler described on Thursday as "very strong." — (AFP, Istanbul)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
