FINANCELINE

TMSF to auction 224 confiscated properties:

ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

Turkey's Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has contracted realtor Turyap to hold an auction in Istanbul on Thursday to sell some YTL 60 million of real estate that the agency confiscated from various failed banks. Turyap will be putting 224 properties up for auction at the Profilo Shopping Center tomorrow. The cheapest property on sale is a stone house in Mersin estimated at YTL 1,700, while the most expensive is a housing development between Ankara and Polatlı valued at YTL 11.7 million. Other valuable properties include a truck service center in Istanbul estimated at YTL 7.3 million, and the Club Datça holiday village in Muğla valued at YTL 3.4 million.

Bosporus bridges and toll roads set income record:

ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

Turkey's toll roads and the two bridges spanning the Bosporus in Istanbul closed the year 2005 having collected record tolls of YTL 306 million, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the previous year. The Bosporus and Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridges collected YTL 166.3 million from the two-way passage of over 136 million vehicles. The General Directorate of Highways reported that the toll roads collected YTL 190.3 million lira from the transit of nearly 121 million vehicles.

Snow and cold increase fruit yields:

ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

The snowy weather that Turkey is currently experiencing may inconvenience people, but the ensuing cold weather tends to increase the coming season's yield of fruit trees, according to Bahri Karaman, Akşehir's chief agricultural officer. Karaman told the Anatolia news agency that fruit trees in temperate zones require more than 2,000 hours of temperatures under 7 degrees Celsius in order to blossom fully in the spring. Turkey did not see much snow and cold weather last winter, and that's why cherry, apricot, apple and pear trees yielded lower than average fruit crops in 2005, he said. Once in bloom, however, fruit trees like freezing weather even less than people do, Karaman said.

Turkey's foreign trade indices rise:

ANK - Turkish Daily News

Turkey's exports increased by 8.1 percent last year compared to 2004, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) reported on Tuesday in its foreign trade indices results from December 2005.

Imports climbed by 10.7 percent, the report said. Turkey's exports and imports did not experience such large growth when compared to last year's indices of 4.7 and 7 percent respectively.

For December alone, exports went up 21 percent from the previous month, rising 14.5 percent above the year before. Fourth quarter results showed exports climbing 11.4 percent from the previous quarter. December imports went up 19.1 percent from the month before, rising 10.1 percent above the figures for 2005. Fourth quarter results showed imports climbing 0.8 percent from the prior quarter.