LONDON - Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan said on Friday that Europe was following Turkey closely and added, ''there is a very positive atmosphere regarding Turkey here.''
Unakitan, who met with big investor firms such as Tesco, International Power and Camelot International in London, held a press conference.
Noting that they often held meetings with investors to carry Turkey to European agenda and they explained economic programs and reforms, Unakitan said that direct investors had a big interest in Turkey. He added that however, coming of investors to Turkey would take time and said, ''it is not easy for them to take a decision. They are waiting for some developments. Privatization is an important opportunity for these investors to come to Turkey.''
Unakitan said that they particularly met with investors who were customers to institutions to be privatized and they gave information to those investors and removed their hesitations. He added that Turkey had a big potential.
Upon a question, Unakitan said that the recent hesitations of investors were different from the previous ones. He added that the investors had questions regarding technical details and procedures about privatization process and he said that they removed those hesitations by giving information.
Unakitan said that privatization was an important part of the government policy and they had fulfilled privatization worth of 268 million U.S. dollars until today. He added that they would privatize bigger institutions until the end of year and they were expecting a revenue worth of four billion dollars.
(GC-Öª) 13.09.2003