ANKARA - Rifat Hisarciklioglu, the Chairman of Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), said on Tuesday that businessmen expected the government to show political will in order to lift bureaucratic hurdles before investments as soon as possible.
Making a keynote speech at the meeting of the ''Direct Foreign Investments Board'', Hisarciklioglu said that the board would try to find solutions to problems since it was not possible to say that Turkey attracts as much foreign investment as it was expected.
Hisarciklioglu noted that there was need for at least 35 billion U.S. dollars of fixed capital investments in order to find jobs to the unemployed. The amount of public investments did not exceed 5 billion U.S. dollars even in the best time, Hisarciklioglu stated.
Hisarciklioglu said that the amount of private investments changed between 20 and 25 billion U.S. dollars, while they (investments) should exceed $ 30 bn. This was a clear sign of why Turkey needed direct foreign investments, Hisarciklioglu stated.
Hisarciklioglu said that they expected Direct Foreign Investments Board to not only find solutions to existing problems, but also to find ways to attract more foreign investments to Turkey.
(BRC-ULG) 06.07.2004