Turkey

Mehmet Şimşek The Central Bank of Turkey said on Thursday that a jump in inflation in February stemmed primarily from rising vegetable prices due to cold weather but added that while these prices are expected to return to normal levels, inflation is not expected to decrease significantly until the last months of the year owing to the base effect.

In a report released on Thursday, the bank attributed a 1.45 percent increase seen in the consumer price index (CPI) in February, which put annual inflation at 10.13 percent, to temporary factors such as rising unprocessed food prices due to decreasing temperatures, tax adjustments and the base effect. The bank foresaw unprocessed food prices returning to normal levels partly in March but did not anticipate seeing a major drop in inflation until the last months of the year, as the base effect is anticipated to persist throughout 2010.

A view of the Ziraat Bankası headquarters in Ankara’s Ulus district. The bank serves customers with 3,372 offices in 18 countries. Turkey’s largest public bank, Ziraat Bankası, announced a historic high of TL 3.51 billion in net profit in 2009, the largest figure the bank has seen in the past century.

The exceptional figure showed that the bank remained unscathed amid the destructive waves of the 2009 global credit crunch, which led to the collapse of some of the world’s leading financial institutions.

Public-private partnership (PPP) could be an efficient way for Turkey’s government to remove the burden of risk for its public project portfolio, but stronger legislation is required to enable this potential for regional development in Turkey.

Speaking to Today’s Zaman at the Investing in Turkey’s Regions Summit 2010 in İstanbul yesterday, Richard Lucas, head of the PPP practice at the London-based international law firm Bird & Bird, highlighted that partnerships between the government and private sector in realizing the public sector’s project needs are crucial. Citing the UK as an example, Lucas stated that a history of government projects being delivered late or under the requirements set shifted the focus towards PPP strategies.