ANKARA - State Minister Ali Babacan said on Friday that all conditions of fifth review had been fulfilled with one and a half months of delay.
Replying to questions of private NTV channel, Babacan said that some issues particularly social security which should be legalized took more time than they estimated.
Babacan noted, ''all conditions of the fifth review have been fulfilled with one and a half months of delay. We expect the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board to complete the review today.''
The economic program in practice was very important to solve structural reforms and to prevent delay of solution of a number of problems from now on, Babacan stated.
Babacan emphasized that Turkey was following right policies.
Stating that they started to make country assistance strategy program to enter a new three-year period with the World Bank, Babacan said that providing 4.5 billion U.S. dollars of loan was in question.
Touching on the 1 billion dollars in grants or 8.5 billion U.S. dollars in loan expected to be taken from the United States, Babacan said that the fifth review should be completed for that assistance.
Babacan noted that negotiations would be completed unless there was a different development in the three months of time between the end of the fifth review and the beginning of the sixth review.
They had not taken into account assistance that could be provided from the United States in their finance calculations for 2003, 2004 and 2005, Babacan stated.
Babacan said, ''there seems no obstacle before this loan at the moment. But, we think it is beneficial to be cautious. We consider 8.5 billion U.S. dollars of loan non-existent until it is deposited to our accounts.''
Stating that some technical works were still being carried out, Babacan said that some bureaucrats held meetings in the United States last week and a technical team would go to the United States in the second week of August to discuss details of legal and technical finance.
Babacan said that the foreseen 8.5 billion U.S. dollars of loan would be released in a certain period of time, adding that they would not take that loan into account without agreeing on a definite payment plan and date.
(BRC-AÖ) 01.08.2003