Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Turkey may obtain at least $6 billion from deal with IMF


06 January 2010, Wednesday

Turkey may obtain at least $6 billion from deal with IMF

Economists have said that Turkey might draw a minimum of $6 billion in the event of a stand-by deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) without having the need to strike any special agreement, thanks to a recent IMF decision to raise its financial capabilities with extra resources from member countries.

The Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday that with previous hikes in Turkey’s subscription quotas in the IMF, the least amount of money it would be able to ask for had been set at $4.5 billion and that the costs of loans had declined by 25 percent.

On Aug. 28, 2009, the IMF raised its funds to $250 billion and allocated $100 billion of this sum to a group of emerging countries, including Turkey. This move means that Turkey can draw another $1.5 billion from the IMF.

A subscription quota determines a country’s maximum financial liabilities to the IMF along with its voting rights in the fund’s administration and its access to IMF funds in terms of loans.

Following the end of the 19th stand-by agreement in May 2008, Turkey has so far shied away from tying itself to the IMF for another term despite the increased need for an anchor of credibility that might have been provided by the IMF amidst the hardest times of the global economic crisis.

The two sides have apparently talked further about another stand-by but have not reached an agreement. The two major disputes between the fund and Turkey were the resources allocated by the central government to local governments and the autonomy of the Revenues Administration (GİB).

Turkey displayed its willingness to abide by fiscal discipline regardless of what the crisis environment requires and notified the IMF that it had taken steps to implement a broad system, introducing tax regulations that can be clearly understood by everyone and rendering tax rates fair and transparent. Also, the government told the IMF that it would implement an efficient and broad audit and sanction system to ease its insistence on giving the GİB autonomy.

Economists further argued that the IMF loan would be used to allocate indirect resources to the private sector. Turkey has signed 19 stand-by arrangements with the IMF, but it has only been able to fulfill the conditions of the last two.

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-197646-106-turkey-may-obtain-at-least-6-billion-from-deal-with-imf.html