Turkish Forum

Category: Business

  • German Turks ‘send a billion euros to Turkey’

    German Turks ‘send a billion euros to Turkey’

    The majority of Germans with a Turkish background – 57 percent – have their own income, revealed the study, carried out by Berlin-based research institute Info and published in the Handelsblatt newspaper. Seventeen percent receive social support.

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    Info director Holger Liljeberg attributed the transactions to Turks’ “very strong” connection to their homeland. The study also found that some 18 percent of German Turks send goods and food to their friends and relatives – at an average value of €250 a year.

    Altogether that amounts to around €90 million in goods and a billion euros in money.

    Around half of the 1,000 German Turks asked in the survey said they owned property either in Germany or Turkey, while a third had property in Turkey.

    “These figures also underscore the desire of many Turks to make provisions should they move back to Turkey one day,” said Liljeberg.

    The study also found that the strong connection to Turkey led many to travel there on a regular basis. “On average the Turks in Germany travel to Turkey 1.9 times a year,” said Liljeberg, adding that one in four Turks travel to Turkey three or four times a year.

    “The strong family connections guarantee lively traffic between the two countries, and ensure that contacts don’t break,” he said.

    The Local/bk

    via German Turks ‘send a billion euros to Turkey’ – The Local.

  • Russia: Putin Creates World’s Largest Oil Company

    Russia: Putin Creates World’s Largest Oil Company

    Exxon Mobil (XOM) has been displaced as the world’s largest oil company due to the acquisition by state-owned Russian oil giant Rosneft of TNK-BP, a Russian oil firm owned jointly by BP (NYSE: BP, London: BP) and a group of Russian billionaires. Politics and patronage appear to have played a significant role in the ascent of Rosneft, which is run by Putin’s close friend Igor Sechin. This deal raises major concerns about how Putin will use his control of Rosneft, now the world’s largest oil company, and the potential for corruption.

  • Iran Floods Turkey With Investment

    Iran Floods Turkey With Investment

    17 percent of foreign companies started in Turkey during September were started with Iranian investment, Today’s Zaman reports.

    blue mosque istanbulThat figure comes from a Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) report released on Friday. It appears to be part of a rising trend; the same report says that 2,140 companies were funded by Iran last year — a 40% increase on 2010.

    More than half of all Iranian-funded companies are based in Istanbul, the report said.

    The worry is that these new companies are being used to get around the numerous sanctions that restrict international trade with Iran. Many believe these sanctions were behind recent trouble in the Iranian economy.

    One source, a former senior executive of a Turkish company with deep ties to Iran, told Zaman that this was very much the case. “Some of these [Iranian] companies were established to procure goods and merchandise for the Iranian economy in clear violation of the [Western] sanctions [aimed at pressuring Iran to drop its controversial nuclear program]. They use smugglers to get the merchandise across the border to Iran.”

    via Iran Floods Turkey With Investment – Business Insider.

  • National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)Passed a Resolution Supporting Trade with Turkey

    National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)Passed a Resolution Supporting Trade with Turkey

    National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)

    Embassy of Tribal Nations
    1516 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
    Phone: (202) 466-7767, Fax: (202) 466-7797

     National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)Passed a  Resolution Supporting Trade with Turkey
     Sacramento, CA – The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) passed a resolution Friday, ( )   October 26 calling on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that encourages and facilitates tribal trade with Turkey and other World Trade Organization (WTO) countries.The resolution, which was introduced by Ms. Brenda Lintinger, Councilmember of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, praises Turkey for its leadership in encouraging investment and economic growth in tribal communities through trade with WTO members. It was adopted during NCAI’s 69th Annual Convention in Sacramento, CA. The NCAI resolution calls on the 113th Congress to take up legislation similar to H.R. 2362, a bill that would have encouraged trade between tribes and WTO countries, but failed to meet the two-thirds vote needed to pass.NCAI, founded in 1944, is the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the interests of tribal governments and communities.

     

    NCAI President Jefferson Keel

    NCAI President Jefferson Keel

     

    Jefferson E. Keel serves as the President of NCAI. President Keel is the 20th President of the organization.  In November 2011 at NCAI’s 68th Annual Convention he was unanimously re-elected to serve a second term as President of the organization. He is currently elected to his fourth term as the Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, and previously served two terms as NCAI’s First Vice-President.

    Resolution  #
    Title/Content
    Submitted By
    Committee
    Subcommittee
    SAC-12-028
    Supporting Legislation Encouraging Indian Tribal Trade and Foreign Investment
    Brenda W. Lintinger, Councilmember, Tunica-Biloxi Tribe
    Economic, Finance, and Community Development
    Economic Development, Finance, and Employment

    img050img0512

     

     

     

  • Turkey’s exports to Iran reach $8.5b in 8 months

    Turkey’s exports to Iran reach $8.5b in 8 months

    Turkey’s exports to Iran for the first eight months of 2012 totaled $8.5 billion, Turkish central bank governor has said.

    Erdem Basci told the Financial Times that the income was due to large-scale Iranian purchases of gold. This level of exports to Iran is widely considered unsustainable due to U.S. misgivings and limits in Turkey’s stock of gold.

    However, in August Turkey’s gold exports switched sharply to the UAE, with almost $2 billion in sales, making the country Turkey’s leading export destination for the month – a more than eightfold increase on the month before.

    Basci said his expectations about Turkey’s growing trade with the Middle East excluded gold sales.

    His remarks also signal Ankara’s growing confidence in its own economic management, after the country managed to bring growth down from unsustainable levels without a recession.

    “We have shown the first successful example of doing that in Turkish history,” he said.

    As a result, he said, Turkey’s $800 billion economy was a different case from other emerging markets, which have slowed in recent months.

    He added that the extraordinary global liquidity unleashed to deal with the financial crisis enabled the country to run a current account deficit of 7 percent of GDP, although its longer term goal was to reduce the level to 5 percent.

    He also emphasized his goal of bringing inflation down to 5 percent, compared to about 9 percent now, which he said would allow long term domestic capital markets to develop and diminish Turkish companies’ reliance on foreign lenders.

    However, at a meeting on Wednesday launching the central bank’s inflation report, several analysts questioned the bank’s ability to reach its inflation goals in a growing economy.

    In a note titled “Wishful thinking or what?”, Burcu Unuvar of Is Investment noted that the bank on Wednesday revised its inflation expectation this year to 7.4 percent, up from 6.2 percent, owing to higher than expected energy prices, while it forecast only a “mild recovery” in domestic demand for the last quarter of the year.

    She described the bank as “aggressively hopeful” in its inflation and growth expectations for next year.

    (Source: Financial Times)

    via Turkey’s exports to Iran reach $8.5b in 8 months – Tehran Times.

  • Iran Buys Gold From Turkey

    Iran Buys Gold From Turkey

    Council

    world gold.png

    It appears that some inside Turkey and Iran are trying to hide a multibillion dollar gold trade between to the two states, according to an exclusive report from Reuters.

    Apparently, gold traders have been flying the bullion from Turkey to Dubai in their hand luggage and then trading it on to Iran.

    Most of the gold has been legally declared in customs. In August, Turkey exported $1.9 billion to the UAE, according to a Reuters analysis of the latest data available from Turkey’s Statistics Office. In July that figure was just $7 million. It is not clear how much of that gold reaches Iran, but experts in Dubai told Reuters they did not notice any “sudden increase” in gold supply in August and they believe almost all went to Tehran.

    Turkey’s gold exports to Tehran, which had been “fluctuating between $1.2 billion and about $1.8 billion each month since April,” plummeted to $180 million in August.

    Iran appears to be using this method to hide its import of gold from Turkish traders. Sanctions against Iran, mostly stemming from its nuclear ambitions, have isolated it from the global banking industry and have crippled the economy and the value of the Rial. Iranians can use gold, instead of its rapidly declining currency, as a means to transfer their wealth and participate in certain international banking activities that would be prohibited under current sanctions on Iran.

    While the trade does not violate sanctions, the Iranians might want to keep the situation under wraps in order avoid attracting the attention from watchful eyes, especially those of the United States and the United Nations. If gold is added to the sanctions list, it would take away key tool which Iran is using to manage its finances.

    via Iran Buys Gold From Turkey – Business Insider.