Turkey looking at eurobond issuance by year-end  

Reuters

Finance minister Mehmet Simsek said that Turkey is “looking closely at market conditions” for issuing eurobonds and that it was likely to happen before year-end.

Simsek was speaking to reporters after an Institute of International Finance event on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Morocco. Investors have said they expect Turkey to go to market with an issuance soon.

“Considering the fiscal measures we took back in July, in tune of close to 2.5 percent of GDP, that we frontloaded, the type of fiscal consolidation that we frontloaded, obviously has its pressure. But I don’t want to give specific times,” on a bond issuance, he said.

At the event itself, Simsek said Turkey had made “significant progress” towards anchoring inflation expectations and said the lira currency looks attractive, but that unwinding past economic policies will take time.

He also said that offering a real interest rate is key in stabilising the lira but that the policy rate had a bit of catching up to do.

Simsek has spearheaded a U-turn toward more orthodox economic policies since June.  

Meanwhile,  Turkish central bank’s net forex reserves rose to $20.74 billion in the week to October 6.

Reserves had fallen to -$5.7 billion in the week to June 2, their lowest since data publication began in 2002. However, the reserves have rebounded since then.

The currency has lost more than 30 percent of its value so far this year against the US dollar, sharpening its decline last month.