TURKEY TO LAUNCH POWER GRID PRIVATIZATION BID THIS MONTH

By ANSAmed

Turkey will start a sell-off process later this month to privatize power grids, top official of the Turkish Privatization Adnimintration (OIB) said. OIB President Metin Kilci told reporters that they would first sell two electricity distribution companies in Ankara (BEDAS) and Sakarya-Kocaeli region (SEDAS), Anadolu news agency reported. "In addition to those, we will start the privatization process for the one in the central province Konya, and either the one in Erzurum-Kars region (Aras) or Van region (Dicle) in eastern Anatolia. It is not clear which will be the first. We plan to start later this month," Kilci said. Upon a question on the privatization of Halkbank, Kilci said there were no strategies set by the government about the bank. He added secondary public offering method would be a high possibility to sell the state-owned Halbank. Kilci also said OIB would remain committed to privatization of 15% shares of Turk Telekom, owned by Turkish Treasury, despite some setbacks. Turkey hopes to earn USD 5.74 billion from this year's privatization process, Kilci said.