ANKARA, Oct 18 (AFP) - Turkey is planning to sell off state land at up to one-seventh going market rates in a bid to attract foreign investment, the Anatolia news agency reported Monday.
Provincial revenue offices are currently drawing up inventories of treasury land suitable for selling, in expectation of increased foreign investment after a possible decision by European Union leaders in December to begin accesion talks with Turkey.
In and around Ankara alone, officials have identified 53.2 million square meters (572.4 million sq feet) of land suitable for sale.
Its current market value stands at 80.9 trillion Turkish lira (about 54.5 million dollars, or 43.7 million euros), but they plan to sell at around 15 trillion lira (about 10.1 million dollars, 8.1 million euros), Anatolia said.
"Our aim is to increase tax revenue by expanding the city's industrial capacity and to increase employment," Cemal Boyali, the deputy head of the Ankara revenue office, told the agency. "That is why we will give the land away at one-sixth or one-seventh its current value."
The decision follows a legal amendment allowing the finance ministry to reduce the prices of treasury land for any industrial investment worth 10 million dollars or more and providing employment to at least 50 people.
Foreign investment is vital to the Turkish economy, which is making headway with a tight economic austerity programme backed by a 16-billion-dollar International Monetary Fund loan to pull the country out of its worst recession in decades.