Erdogan rings the first gong of Bourse Istanbul

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the Bourse Istanbul, the new institution bringing together Istanbul's financial markets and said the fact that markets joined forces will help Istanbul reach its aim to be a financial center like London or Tokyo. Erdogan underlined Istanbul's aim to be among the top ten financial centers in the world till 2023 and led a gong ceremony to open the market for the day's operations. Reminding AK Party government took over a national economy with interest rates at 63 per cent which is now 6, Erdogan added: "I still find it too high, it creates pressure. My desire is to bring it further down to ease the interest pressure on the consumers of Turkey." Erdogan said Turkey's exports were 36 billion dollars in 2002 and in the end of 2012 it has increased to 152.5 billion dollar. He also reminded Turkey's debts to IMF fell from 23.5 billion dollar to 400 million dollar. Erdogan also said "Ankara is the political center and if we say Istanbul is the financial center then we have to move public banks, which are the control mechanism to Istanbul. That includes Central Bank." "I do not care about credit notes, because there is a hidden agenda and a secret ideology. It is not open, clear and fair. If they were to be fair, we could have BB+ or something like that currently."