Borsa Istanbul to announce new major partner in two months

The head of Borsa Istanbul (Istanbul Stock Exchange), Ibrahim Turhan, announced on Tuesday that the market will be partnering up with one of the major global stock markets in two months. Turhan said the agreement is to be finalized in two months. He had previously stated that Borsa Istanbul was discussing a partnership with the London Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq and German Deutsche Bourse. Despite the global financial crises, Turkey's average growth between 2002 and 2012 stood at 5.1 percent, Turhan said, adding that Turkey had become more integrated with global markets during this time. "In times of crisis, there were no limitations imposed by the government on foreign capital. There was no extra tax and no different treatment between foreign and domestic companies." In addition, he said that Turkey's outperforms the Maastricht criteria with its inflation rate at around 6 percent, which the central bank aims to drop to 5 percent, and the borrowing rate at around 6 percent. He said the BIST-100 index will be offered to the public by the end of 2015.