ANKARA - Turkey`s Finance Minister said on Wednesday that the "Bogazici" and "Fatih Sultan Mehmet" bridges of Istanbul would be privatized.
Speaking at a parliamentary meeting held to discuss the draft law envisaging the privatization of highways and bridges in Turkey, Minister Kemal Unakitan said such privatizations were of great importance taking into consideration the economic structuring and transformation process Turkey was going through currently.
Unakitan said a total of 303.1 million vehicles used the bridges over Bosphorus and highways in Turkey in 2007, and a gross amount of 641.5 million YTL was earned from such crossings (1 USD equals 1.24 YTL).
He also said the highways, which would be privatized by way of "transfer of operating rights", were located on 6 main routes and the total length of such roads reached 1860 km.
Unakitan said that the quality, strength and infrastructure & superstructure needs of the assets to be privatized would be improved rapidly after the privatization process.
The Finance Minister also said that privatization of highways and bridges would have numerous positive effects such as the transfer of high-technology, increase in productivity, decrease in traffic accidents, time and fuel saving and prevention of environmental pollution.
(DO-AÖ)