Turkey’s Top Aide Seeks Limits to Influence of Foreign Banks

Turkey needs to strengthen control of its banks and limit foreign ownership, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief economic adviser said as government ministers jostle for influence in the wake of his election victory.

“The most important thing is to change the structure and weighting of the Turkish banking sector,” Yigit Bulut said in his column in Star newspaper yesterday. The industry “seems to have been abandoned to the control and mercy of both foreigners and ‘foreigners within’,” he said, adding new bank licenses might be granted in pursuit of those goals.