{"id":29240,"date":"2018-01-19T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T19:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=29240"},"modified":"2018-01-19T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T19:09:08","slug":"ebrd-praises-but-urges-turkey-to-reform-and-stabilize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/ebrd-praises-but-urges-turkey-to-reform-and-stabilize\/","title":{"rendered":"EBRD praises but urges Turkey to reform and stabilize"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was not the most auspicious day to be talking about investment portfolios and new agreements.<\/p>\n

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti\u2019s two-day long visit to the bank\u2019s largest country of operations could not have come at a worse time.<\/p>\n

Meetings with government officials and company representatives went according to plan and an agreement to make Turkey a benefactor of social projects was duly signed in the presence of President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n

President Chakrabarti\u2019s long-awaited visit coincided with the start of Turkey\u2019s assault on the Afrin region of neighbouring Syria.<\/p>\n

As the cross-border shelling intensified, with the Syrian government warning that Syrian air defenses would target the Turkish army, and the NATO partners began expressing their strong disapproval; Sir Suma\u2019s talk of bringing more foreign investors to Turkey somewhat lost its luster.<\/p>\n

Still, everyone put on a brave face and repeated their confidence for Turkey to remain as one of the top investment markets in the coming years.<\/p>\n

As President Erdogan reminded<\/a> at the signing ceremony, \u00a0Turkey has been a \u00a0founding member and a shareholder of the EBRD since 1991. It became a country of operations in 2009, and the EBRD has become a major investor in Turkey. It has been investing \u20ac10 billion across various sectors of the Turkish economy since then.<\/p>\n

Turkey is now the EBRD\u2019s largest country of operations by annual investment volume. With an optimistic growth forecast of 3.5 percent in 2018, a strong level of investment is expected to continue.<\/p>\n

During his two-day visit to Turkey, the EBRD President repeatedly emphasized<\/a> the importance of predictability, and the need for a stable and well-implemented legal and regulatory framework. He urged further structural reforms and strengthening the good governance at corporate and state organizations.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Ipek Yezdani of Hurriyet Daily News<\/a> , Sir Suma listed stability, consistency, the rule of law and development of democratic institutions as important criteria for potential investors.<\/p>\n

I do not know what was going through Sir Suma\u2019s mind when President Erdogan complained<\/a> about credit agencies having an ideological approach towards Turkey and that their actions were always politically motivated.<\/p>\n

The EBRD officials would not publicly air their concerns about their shareholders. The summary of the President\u2019s visit to Turkey, predictably, referred to \u201ca new chapter in what already is an important relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n

The EBRD was originally established with a clear mandate to promote democracy in former Eastern Bloc countries. It has modified its priorities considerably. \u00a0Since 2013, it sees its main mission as supporting open market economies, with a strong emphasis on good governance.<\/p>\n

However, a London- based banker who spoke to a group of journalists including Firdevstalkturkey.com, on strict condition of anonymity, said that the big financial organizations still had a considerable amount of \u2018checks and balances\u2019 in their relations with their partner countries. \u201cThey may not be in the business of democratization, but they have learned valuable lessons from their experience of dealing with the Transition countries of the former Soviet bloc. They know how easily investments can go badly wrong and how growth can be stunted when reforms are abandoned\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was not the most auspicious day to be talking about investment portfolios and new agreements. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti\u2019s two-day long visit to the bank\u2019s largest country of operations could not have come at a worse time. Meetings with government officials and company representatives went according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29244,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29240\/revisions\/29244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}