Word: istanbul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lights never went out, and the rumored orgy failed to materialize. Still, from the point of view Turkey's Sunni Muslim authorities, a hundred other heresies were committed on a recent evening at the Alevi Muslim prayer service in Istanbul's working-class Okmeydani neighborhood. Most noticeable were the girls without headscarves, flirting with boys in the open entrance hall. Then there was the laxity: With no call to prayer ringing from loudspeakers, worshipers straggled in late, while one of the religious leaders joked about having to compete with TV sitcoms. When the service did start, it was far from...
Turkish banks have been particularly attractive to outside investors. Citigroup last year bought a 20% stake in Akbank (for $3 billion). "The foreign appetite for Turkish companies and stocks is high," said Hakan Avci, director of asset management at the Istanbul office of Raymond James Securities, a U.S. company, before the recent political blowup. In the past 18 months, Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse bought local brokerages in the country. Avci has since lowered his projections because of the political turmoil but says he is "optimistic that this crisis will be overcome and a solution found." The Turkish...
Commercial real estate in big cities like Istanbul has become particularly attractive to foreign investors who see markets in Turkey that have yet to be picked over. The graceful domes and minarets of Istanbul and other cities are being augmented by a thicket of building cranes, and futuristic shopping malls are competing for space among the red-tiled roofs. Analyst Roger Barris at Merrill Lynch predicts that outsiders will pour more than $15 billion into Turkish real estate in the next five years. Turkish coffee may be famous, but Turkey is now one of Starbucks' fastest-growing markets...
...Europe in its old age," jokes Mustafa Boydak, head of Kayseri's Chamber of Commerce, citing Turkey's entrepreneurial efforts and the youthfulness of its population, 70% of which is under 35. The region's growing economic clout, says Gerald Knaus, director of the European Stability Initiative, an Istanbul-based think tank, suggests that divisions in Turkey between wealthy, secular élites and the conservative Muslim middle class are disappearing. "We are seeing the transformation of an agrarian society into an industrial economy," he says...
...President, Abdullah Gul, is from Kayseri.) "The reason the economy was booming in recent years," says Raymond James analyst Avci, "was that there was finally political stability with a single-party government. That is now in jeopardy, which is worrying." And yet businessmen like Serdar Bilgili remain upbeat. The Istanbul entrepreneur just invested in a $75 million project to build a new W Hotel in the trendiest part of Istanbul. "We are very positive in the long term," he says. "The outlook might seem unclear now, but financial markets and bank reserves are strong, and we are confident...