ANKARA - International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation continued its meetings in the Treasury Undersecretariat on Tuesday.
Sources said that Finance Ministry, Central Bank and State Planning Organization (DPT) bureaucrats were also attending meetings in the Treasury.
The delegation is expected to complete its meetings and leave Turkey this week.
IMF delegation which started to hold meetings with representatives of private sector in Istanbul on September 25 held some meetings on 2003 year figures, macroeconomic figures and 2004 year budget in Ankara.
The delegation focused on 2003 year budget practices and preliminary studies on 2004 year budget in its meetings in Ankara and it also took up constructive reforms on the sixth review which were mentioned by the government in the letter of intent.
Under the sixth review, IMF wants direct tax reform regulation to be completed by rearranging incentives, new budget laws to be passed, the number of redundant employees in public economic enterprises to be decreased, effectiveness of Banking Regulatory and Supervisory Agency (BRSA) to be strengthened and necessary laws to be passed. It also wants plan of privatizing Turkish Telekom to be approved and a strategy to decrease shortcomings to be determined.
After IMF Executive Board approved the sixth review, IMF is expected to release about 500 million U.S. dollars of loan tranche.
Nearly 2.5 billion U.S. dollars from 17.5 billion U.S. dollars of loan which was granted by IMF to Turkey under the stand-by covering 2002-2004 has not been used yet.
(EÖ-BRC) 14.10.2003