Ziraat profit increases 13 percent

ANKARA

Turkey’s state-owned Ziraat Bank saw profit surge by 13 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period of 2014, the bank said in a statement late Nov. 4.

The bank’s profit reached 1.152 billion Turkish Liras ($402 million), up from 1.02 billion liras ($35.6 billion) in the third quarter of last year.

Ziraat CEO Hüseyin Aydin said in the statement that the bank’s loan book increased by 25 percent, reaching 239 billion liras ($83.4 billion) from September last year to September of 2015.

Ziraat employs more than 20,000 people in 1,776 branches and has 96 branches in eighteen foreign countries including Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Russia, the U.K., the U.S., Georgia, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan.