RIZE, Turkey (Reuters) – In the verdant hilltop villages of Rize, images of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the region’s second most famous export after tea, hang from the windows of partially-built houses.

There is deep pride here in the man whose family left this north-eastern, pious backwater 44 years ago to seek a better life 1,000 km (600 miles) west in Istanbul.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – For decades the 16th century bath house built for the Ottoman Empire’s most infamous woman, Roxelana, languished unnoticed between the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia, relegated to life as a carpet showroom.

Ottoman bath houses, structures once so important they were designed by the finest architects of the realm, fell out of favour as Turkey modernised and its citizens installed running water and bathrooms in their homes.

ISTANBUL, May 30 (Reuters) – Turkey’s central bank on Monday
cut back its dollar purchases after a worsening euro zone debt
crisis eased the flow of funds to the country, and stressed its
much-criticised policy mix had started to work.

The latest move in a complex campaign to cool gains for the
lira currency while trying to prevent the economy from
overheating was accompanied by a call by Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan for “real” interest rates to fall to zero.

ISTANBUL, May 12 (Reuters) – Turkey’s central bank defended
its policy of low interest rates and higher required reserve
ratios on Thursday, saying it began to show positive effects in
April and record external deficits would improve later this
year.

Data on Wednesday showing the current account deficit rose
to a record high monthly level in March sparked selling of
Turkish assets and deep doubt in the market that the central
bank’s unorthodox policy is working.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Making juice from their own fruit crops or polishing gemstones from their mines would help the world’s least developed countries diversify their economies and reduce poverty, a senior World Bank official said on Sunday.

“Just producing crops is not enough. You need to process the product you produce and create jobs,” World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in an interview ahead of a five-day U.N. conference in Istanbul.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish commercial real estate firm Ronesans is offering its shares for between 5.0 and 6.4 lira each in a planned Istanbul listing next month which could raise as much as $374 million.

In a statement which confirmed what a source close to the deal earlier told Reuters, Ronesans also said on Tuesday this range would give it an equity value of between 1.55 billion lira ($1 billion) and 1.98 billion, including new capital to be raised in the offering.

ISTANBUL, April 26 (Reuters) – Turkish commercial real
estate firm Ronesans is offering its shares for between 5 and
6.4 lira ($3.3 to $4.2) each in a planned Istanbul listing next
month, a source close to the deal said on Tuesday.

Ronesans, or Renaissance as it is known in English, has
applied to list around 25 percent of its shares in the offering,
in which it aims to raise around $250 million to $300 million,
according to another source close to the deal. [ID:nLDE73A0HJ]

ISTANBUL, April 21 (Reuters) – Turkey’s central bank raised
lenders’ required reserves on Thursday in a surprise move that
boosted government bonds and pared rate hike expectations, and
which markets took as a clear statement of intent from its new
governor.

The rise in reserve ratios — this time on dollar as well as
lira deposits — was the fifth since November under a policy of
looser interest rates together with tighter banking liquidity
aimed at cooling a domestic credit boom without prompting
speculative capital inflows.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – With a rush of churning water then a jolt, the Karaoglanoglu ferry docks at Karakoy passenger terminal on Istanbul’s European shore and a familiar rite begins.

Young men dart from the waiting room and leap aboard before the gangway is fixed, racing for a prized spot on the benches just above the water.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish banks have enjoyed the kind of success many peers can only dream of but a central bank strategy to curb runaway credit growth has got them seething as their share prices flounder and profit potential shrinks.

The central bank has raised banks’ required reserve ratios (RRRs) four times since last November in a bid to reduce loan growth from an annual 35 percent to 20-25 percent, a rate it says will help rein in Turkey’s external imbalances.