Today's Zaman reported that Turkey attracted USD 12.1 billion in foreign direct investment in the first 11 months of 2011, up by 70% YoY.

Mr İlker Aycı president of Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey pointed to the USD 22.5 billion record achieved before the 2008 global financial crisis and underlined that the country will return to that level sooner rather than later. He said that "And afterwards, we will bring Turkey to the USD 30 billion to USD 40 billion range."

ISPAT is currently carrying out a sector specific analysis as a part of which the agency's experts study potential investors in those fields highly relevant to Turkey. They have already completed analyzing the automotive and chemicals petrochemicals sectors, short listing nearly three dozen foreign companies that may show serious interest in investing in Turkey.

Mr Aycı said earlier that they have also started courting those companies and that a number of them are likely to announce their investment plans in the country before this year ends. The most attractive sectors for foreigners to invest in Turkey are the banking, insurance, energy and manufacturing sectors.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Turkey attracted USD 9.1 billion of FDI in 2010 and was the 27th most appealing destination for investment around the world. The country attracted the highest amount of FDI between 2006 and 2008, with an average of more than USD 20 billion annually.

(Sourced from www.todayszaman.com)