Finance Minister Simsek: "No stumbling in Turkey's energy privatizations

Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has dismissed the possibility of any faltering in Turkey's energy privatizations, underlining that those who have bid the highest amounts to acquire such state assets are fulfilling their responsibilities vis-à-vis the deals they signed with the state much earlier than the agreed deadlines. As part of an intensive privatization campaign, Turkey invited interested parties to bid for 18 state-owned electricity distribution companies between July 2008 and December 2010. Nine of those grids had already been transferred to their new owners and some of those new buyers paid the entire amount in a single down payment. The processes on the transfer of eight other grids are still ongoing. The total revenue the Turkish Treasury will bring in when all those transfers are completed is nearly TL 15.8 billion ($10 billion).