President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke over the phone with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the last round of peace talks held in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to the Turkish Directorate of Communications. President Erdogan said the meeting has added meaningful momentum to the process to end the war and establish the peace. Erdogan reiterated his proposal to host President Zelensky and Russian President Putin for peace talks.
Erdogan also said Turkey is ready, in principle, to act as a guarantor country for Ukraine, but the details of such a format need to be worked out, according to Reuters. He also added that Moscow’s decision to scale back some of its operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv was ‘truly important’. Ukraine wants Turkey, Germany and the members of the UN Security Council to act as guarantors in any potential peace deal.
Turkey and Romania have drawn up a roadmap to further enhance relations, according to Vice President Fuat Oktay. “Romania is one of Turkey’s most important trading partners in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans,” Fuat Oktay said at a joint press conference with Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Sorin Mihai Grindeanu. The two countries finalized an 82-point action plan to strengthen cooperation. One of the aims is to increase bilateral trade volume from USD 10bn to USD 15bn by 2025 and push it above USD 20bn by 2030, Oktay added.
A potential gas pipeline project between Turkey and Israel is not possible in the short term and building an alternative system to cut dependence on Russia will not happen quickly, according to Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. President Tayyip Erdogan said he was ‘very hopeful’ for energy cooperation with Israel, and he hoped to discuss the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The parliament passed a law lowering the minimum required votes for a party to enter parliament to 7% from 10%, in a move that could reduce the likelihood of early elections this year.
Turkey raised the price of natural gas used by power plants by 44.30% and the price of gas used by industry by 50%, while consumer gas prices rose by 35%, according to the state energy company BOTAS.
DAILY AGENDA
The Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO) Turkey Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) declined from 50.4 to 49.4 in March, compared to the previous month.
The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) will release retail and wholesale prices in Istanbul for March (12.00 pm).
The Central Bank will release the results of the ‘Bank Loans Tendency Survey’ for January-March 2022 (2.30 pm).
The U.S. based Standards and Poor (S&P) is expected to announce Turkey’s rating towards midnight.
Meanwhile…
>> Guliz Ozturk has been appointed the CEO of Pegasus Airlines. With this appointment, she became the first female airline company CEO in the Turkish civil aviation industry.
>> The Central Bank’s international net reserves declined by USD 1.24bn from USD 17.19bn to USD 15.95bn in the week ending on March 25, compared to the previous week. The bank’s total reserves decreased by USD 671m from USD 108.3bn in the same period.
>> Foreign investors’ net equity and corporate bond acquisitions totaled USD 17.4m and USD 1.8m, respectively, while their net government debt securities (GDS) outflow from Turkey amounted to USD 104.8m in the week ending on March 25, according to the Central Bank.
>> Residents’ FX deposit accounts rose by USD 1.36bn to USD 217.6bn in the week ending on March 25, compared to the previous week, according to the Central Bank.
>> The loan volume of the banking sector has increased by TRY 63.2bn as of the week ending on March 25, according to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK). The total loan volume of the sector rose from TRY 5.39tr to TRY 5.46tr in this period.
>>Turkey’s gross debt stock rose by USD 8.2bn to USD 441.1bn in 2021, compared to the previous year, according to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.
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