WASHINGTON, June 7, 2013 - The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a Competitiveness and Savings Development Policy Loan (CSDPL) for Turkey in the amount of Euro 624.1 million (US$ 800 million equivalent).
Grounded in the development goals of Turkey, the CSDPL aims to facilitate Turkey’s growth to high-income status by bolstering competitiveness through an improved business environment and better enterprise governance and by boosting domestic savings and deepening the financial sector.
“Turkey is on the threshold to high income and has weathered a difficult global environment well,” said Martin Raiser, World Bank Country Director for Turkey. “The World Bank Group will continue to partner with Turkey in implementing a program of structural reforms to make the economy more competitive and ensure sustained economic growth over the decade to come.”
Policies, strategies, and reform actions supported under the CSDPL program include:
- Enactment of a new Capital Markets Law, which aims to make capital markets deeper, more competitive and transparent.
- Enactment of a Leasing, Factoring and Financing Companies Law, which aims to contribute to the growth of the non-bank financial institutions sector and to improve access to finance, especially of SMEs.
- Enactment of a law amending the private pension law which aims to improve incentives for voluntary retirement savings, thus making savings longer term.
- Issuance of critical secondary legislation to implement the Commercial Code.
- Progress in improving the investment climate including through a circular issued to simplify the registration of businesses.
- Further measures to reduce informal employment through an increase in the number of social security auditors and the introduction of risk-based auditing.
The CSDPL is an IBRD Flexible Loan with an interest rate equal to 6 months EURIBOR term plus a variable spread, with a final maturity of 20 years, including a 3.5 year grace period.
