Turkey courts US companies and investors during visit

Turkish finance minister Mehmet Simsek said he will meet with rating agencies, investors and companies planning to shift supply to Turkey during a visit to the US this week.

“I will be in America this week for the IMF, World Bank and G20 meetings. We will meet with rating agencies in New York at the beginning of the week and then with direct investors based in America,” Simsek told reporters during a weekend visit to Turkey’s Black Sea province of Giresun.

“We will meet with real sector representatives, especially US companies that plan to shift their supply to Turkey, especially following recent developments,” he said, referring to the tariffs imposed by US president Donald Trump.

Last Friday, Turkey’s overnight interest rate rose to the new upper band of the rate corridor, around 49 percent, a day after the central bank’s surprise policy tightening.

• Turkey says oil price under $65 will tame inflation
• Tensions in trade and politics weigh on Turkish money markets
• Turkey looks for positives from tariff fallout

Those moves followed weeks of market turmoil triggered by the March arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival, and then the imposition of tariffs by Trump.

Simsek said he would attend around 15 bilateral meetings or meetings organised by investment banks each day in the US, and would convey the message that Turkey’s economic programme will not change.

“In all these meetings, we will say that there is no change in the programme, that there is a very strong political will behind the programme,” Simsek said.