The All Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜMSİAD) and the Business Life Cooperation Association (İŞHAD) have announced that they will vote in favor of the proposed constitutional amendments in the Sept. 12 referendum, yet another sign of the business world’s widespread support for the European Union-backed reform package.

Following his speech at TÜMSİAD’s fast-breaking iftar dinner Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız was given a full tray of baklava on which “Yes” was written on Sunday.

Speaking at separate fast-breaking iftar dinners they organized on Sunday, Hasan Sert and Recep Ekşi, presidents of TÜMSİAD and İŞHAD, respectively, both underlined the significance of the proposed changes for the country and their determination to show their approval of them on the day of the referendum.

Stating that TÜMSİAD has 42 domestic and eight overseas offices, where it serves 8,500 members, Sert said they made the decision to cast a “yes” vote on Sept. 12 following extensive discussions with their High Advisory Council and executive committee and with all their provincial presidents. He added that they never thought of it as support or opposition to any political party.

“Removing things that are holding our country back and the nation’s future are important to us, as is a better democracy and an improved standard of living. We consulted all bodies within TÜMSİAD and took this decision without heeding politics and by putting priority on national interests. We believe that the proposed 26 amendments are a turning point for us,” Sert stated.

Once approved, the reform package will improve democratic representation in the higher judiciary through changes to the structure of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), limiting the jurisdiction of military courts solely to disciplinary affairs, opening the decisions of the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) to judicial review and paving the way for the trial of the 1980 coup perpetrators. The package will also establish an ombudsman’s office, give citizens the right to individually apply to the Constitutional Court and enable affirmative action for women, children and the disabled. Sert referred to all those envisaged changes in his speech while elaborating on TÜMSİAD’s reasons for backing the package on Sept. 12.

Ekşi pointed out the possible benefits Turkey could derive from approving the proposed constitutional amendments, too. He explained they would endorse the package to help Turkey develop and advance both politically and economically, adding that people will certainly side with a better democracy on Sept. 12 as well. “Those who assumed that this nation will bow to a dictatorship have read the signs incorrectly,” he said.

The EU-backed reform package has received huge support from domestic business circles. It has already been endorsed by the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO), the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD), the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM), the Free Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (HÜRSİAD) and the Anatolian Lions Businessmen’s Association (ASKON), as well as scores of local business groups.

24/08/2010

Kuveyt Turk’s summer sukuk, with its key navigation points plotted along a Kuwait-Turkey-England-Caymans crescent, seems a fitting offering for the Ramadan season.

In an offering structured by Norton Rose, Kuveyt Turk Katilim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi (Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank Inc. or “Kuveyt Turk”), will reportedly finalize its issuance of a three-year $100 million sukuk murabaha in mid-August according to Reuters. (A diagram of the murabaha structure appears at page 2 of the preliminary prospectus.)

Using a Cayman Islands vehicle (KT Turkey Sukuk Ltd.), the sukuk will be listed on the London Stock Exchange and the trust certificates will be governed by English law. Although issued from the Cayman Islands by a Turkish bank, the certificates cannot be sold in either Turkey or the Caymans. Proceeds are to be used to purchase the murabaha’s underlying assets.

Interestingly, although the offering references Sharia principles and Islamic banks with regard to other institutions, Kuveyt Turk refers to itself as a “participation bank.” Indeed, the offering discusses interest-free” banking rather than “Islamic banking”; the preliminary prospectus cites “advisory boards” rather than “Sharia boards”.1

Kuwait Finance House owns more than 62% of Kuveyt Turk, with Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) owning an additional 9%, as does the Islamic Development Bank. Kuveyt Turk has declared its “primary objective is to establish itself as the “leading participation bank” within Turkey for those seeking interest-free banking solutions and accordingly seeks to become one of the top 10 banks (in terms of assets) in Turkey by 2018.”

Bank Asya, Turkey’s largest participation bank, has reported a net profit of TL 123 million in the first six months of this year.

The bank issued a statement on Tuesday to announce corporate figures for the January-June period. According to the statement, its equity and assets also exhibited an impressive trend as well as its profit, respectively seeing 5.4 percent and 11.3 percent increases in six months. With that growth, Bank Asya’s equity reached TL 1.8 billion and its assets amounted to TL 12.916 billion. In addition to that, the funds it has collected through its current and participation accounts rose to TL 9.825 billion, marking a 7.5 percent increase in the same time interval.

It has increased the number of its stores to 160 throughout Turkey, where it employs 4,260 people.

As an indication of the trust the international finance sector invests in it, Bank Asya has received $196.5 million and 99.2 million euros of credit through syndicated “murabaha” loans.

Murabaha is an Islamic method of extending loans and encompasses a particular kind of sale where the seller states the cost of the commodity to be sold and sells it to another person by adding a specified amount of money to the price. Bank Asya is the first participation bank in Turkey to have its shares traded on the stock market.

12th August 2010

Turkish Economy Minister Ali Babacan has officially been picked as a member of a new United Nations panel on global sustainability by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

 The 21-member High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability will stage discussions and deliberations to tackle poverty on the global scale and cope with climate change while figuring out ways to ensure development is conducted through environmentally friendly means. The panel brings together representatives from government, the private sector and civil society in countries rich and poor and will be co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma.

The panel will also exchange views on steps to be taken to reach the UN’s low carbon emission targets in the 21st century.

“I have asked the panel to think big,” UN Secretary-General Ban said on Aug. 9 as he was unveiling the panel in a press conference in New York. “The time for narrow agendas and narrow thinking is over.”

The panel will have to deliver its final report by the end of next year ahead of a UN conference on sustainable development in 2012 in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro.

“We need to promote low carbon growth and strengthen our resilience to the impacts of climate change. We need to address the interlinked global challenges of poverty, hunger, water, energy security and sanitation. In short, we need a blueprint for a more livable, prosperous and sustainable future for all,” Ban said.

The panel members include United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Millennium Development Goals Hajiya Amina Az-Zubair, co-CEO of Research in Motion and Chairman of the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) of Canada James Laurence Balsillie, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Climate Alexander Bedritsky, former Norwegian Prime Minister and former chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development Gro Harlem Brundtland, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, ecologist and former Mexican Environment Secretary Julia Carabias Lillo, Swedish Development and Aid Minister Gunilla Carlsson, parliamentarian and former Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Dias Diogo, Global Green Growth Institute Director and former South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, member of the House of Representatives and former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, European Union Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard, Spanish Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), former Spanish Environment Minister Cristina Narbona Ruiz, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations and US Cabinet member Susan E. Rice, parliamentarian and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson and China Meteorological Administration Director Zheng Guoguang.

12th August 2010