OECD official: "Growth in Turkey will pick up next year"

Recent indices suggest that the end of the impact of the global economic crisis for Turkey isn't far away, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Assistant Secretary General Aaart De Geus told the Global Economic Symposium (GES) in Germany late last week. Underlining the importance of the Turkish economy's structural reforms of recent years, De Geus asserted that the country will achieve swift growth if the necessary reforms continue to be implemented. "I believe that Turkey will resume a fast track of economic growth next year if it keeps up with structural reforms," he stated. Saying that Turkey's financial sector is in a far better position than those of many other developed markets in the face of the crisis, De Geus said the country's banking industry owes this success to measures taken over the last seven years, adding, "While the world's giant banks have sustained heavy losses and some have even collapsed, Turkish banks have managed to keep troubles at bay." He said thanks to this sound structure the government has not been forced to do extra spending, while many other countries had to spend billions of dollars to keep their banks alive. He said that with its structural reforms, the Turkish banking industry is a role model for the finance sectors of G-20 countries as well as developed countries. Representing Turkey at the meeting, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek was elected a member of the symposium's consultation board, and participated in panel discussions and presented proposals for tackling the crisis. A new agency to monitor risks in the international markets was among Simsek's suggestions.