Three Turks in Italy

This is not an adaptation of Rossini’s opera Il turco in Italia. Rather it is an attempt by three Turkish bureaucrats to find sustenance – outside their own country – for their ambitious economic programme. Turkey’s central bank governor, treasury under-secretary, and stock exchange chief, roadshow their country to investors in western Europe. They are later joined in London by privatization boss Ugur Bayar. Metin Munir goes along for the ride

We are standing in front of La Scala restaurant in Milan, engulfed in heat and a sense of failure, waiting for the limousines which will take us to the airport. Our little group includes bankers from Garanti Securities and Merrill Lynch and three of the four king-pins of Turkey’s financial bureaucracy: treasury under-secretary Selcuk Demiralp, central bank governor Gazi Ercel and Istanbul Stock Exchange chairman Osman Birsen. The fourth, Privatization Administration chairman Ugur Bayar, will join us in London, which is our next port of call.

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