Turkish participation bank ‘'Turkey Finance'' increased the limit of loans which are provided for Turkish companies making import from Saudi Arabia. The limit of loan for import of non-oil products was increased from $5 million to $20 million as of July 28, 2010. The bank presents long-term financing opportunities as well as insurance convenience to Turkish companies which are making import from Saudi Arabia. Turkey Finance and Saudi Export Program (SEP) - which was established to encourage export of non-oil products from Saudi Arabia - had signed a loan agreement in 2008. Turkey Finance is one of the nine banks which can operate within the scope of SEP in Turkey. Meanwhile, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) decided to open an international “Private Sector Development Center” which will be based in Istanbul. Through the center, UNDP is expected to share experiences of the Turkish private sector. UNDP Permanent Representative Shahid Najam, who paid a visit to Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said development pace of the Turkish private sector was striking. “Turkish private sector developed rapidly. Now other countries closely follow Turkey, ask support and examine Turkey as a model country,” he said. Najam said the center would have an important contribution to boosting of Turkey's private sector activities in global sense from Fiji to Chile and from Canada to South Africa. Separately, Najam and Bursa Chamber of Commerce & Industry Chairman Ilhan Parseker signed a memorandum of understanding on Growing Inclusive Market. Separately, the year-end inflation expectation, which was 7.69 percent in the second survey of July 2010, decreased to 7.51 percent, According to the first term survey of August 2010, The aim of the survey is to find out the expectations of experts and decision makers from the financial and real sectors and professionals, pertaining to consumer price (CPI) inflation, interest rates, exchange rate, current account balance and GNP growth rate. The survey is conducted twice a month, in the first and third weeks of every month. Morever, Turkish banking sector's capital adequacy ratio (CAR) was posted at 19.2 percent in June, the country's Banking Regulation & Supervision Agency said in an industry outlook report in June that was released Friday. The banking sector's net profit in June, 2010 increased 10.1 percent and reached 12.1 billion Turkish lira when compared to the same period of 2009. According to the report, banking sector obtained 56.7 percent of its profit from private banks, 28.7 percent from state banks, 7.7 percent from foreign banks, 3.6 percent from development and investment banks, and 3.1 percent from participation banks. The sector's number of personnel increased 4,489 to 188,694 and the number of branches rose 147 to 9,728 in the first half of 2010. Banking sector grew 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and the loans of the sector rose 15.8 percent in the first half of 2010.
