Day: July 16, 2021

Turkey’s benchmark stock index opened Friday at 1,370.32 points, rising 0.22% or 3.07 points from the previous close.

At Wednesday’s close, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index was up 1.52% at 1,367.25 points, with a daily trading volume of 10.29 billion Turkish liras ($1.19 billion).

There was no transaction on Thursday due to the Democracy and National Unity Day that marked the anniversary of the July 15, 2016 defeated coup.

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 8.5600 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, down from 8.6020.

One euro traded for 10.1400 Turkish liras, versus 10.1690 at Thursday’s close while British pound/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 11.8300, down from 11.9760.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $73.10 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkish Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, has added additional flights to meet domestic demand for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which falls next week.

Turkish Airlines announced in a statement that it will add 427 domestic flights starting Friday through July 25.

Amid rising interest in holidays with the normalization process from the pandemic, the company said the additional flights will depart from the country’s most popular airports – Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city by population, the capital Ankara, and the northwestern provinces of Bursa and Kocaeli – to 30 airports around the country.

Turkish Airlines currently operates flights to 254 destinations in 100 countries.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A top Afghan delegation, led by the country’s peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah, departed for Qatar’s capital Doha on Friday for crucial talks with the Taliban amid ensuing violence in Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters at the Kabul Airport, Abdullah said the Taliban must realize the raging war and advances on districts would lead them nowhere, and they need to capitalize on this chance for political settlement in the country. “There is still a chance for peace despite the ongoing heavy fighting between the government forces and the Taliban in various parts of the country,” said chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.

Earlier, former President Hamid Karzai called this delegation comprising key politicians, including former Vice President Mohammad Karim Khalili, Ata Mohammad Noor, head of the splinter faction of Jamiat-e-Islami, chief negotiator Masoom Stanekzai, Salam Rahimi, Fatima Gailani and State Minister for Peace Affairs Sadat Mansoor Naderi, a strong team with decision-making power.

Karzai last week called on the Afghan government and the Taliban to prioritize peace talks over bloodshed in the country. Addressing a news conference at his residence, Karzai also hinted at resumption of stalled talks between the two sides.

Also last week, the top US peace broker, Zalmay Khalilzad, began his shuttle diplomacy tour of Qatar, Uzbekistan and Pakistan amid ensuing violence across Afghanistan. In a series of tweets, Afghanistan-born seasoned US diplomat said he was returning to Doha and the region to continue “determined diplomacy” in pursuit of a peace agreement between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Since US President Joe Biden announced an exit plan from Afghanistan in May, the Taliban have captured over 150 districts in the war-weary country.

The intra-Afghan peace talks in Doha are part of the US-Taliban peace deal inked in February 2020, but both the Afghan government and the Taliban have been blaming each other for the lack of progress on the negotiation table.

Peace conference in Islamabad postponed

Meanwhile, Pakistan on Friday postponed a scheduled Afghan peace conference in capital Islamabad over the weekend.

The announcement came after Prime Minister Imran Khan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Friday met on the sidelines of “Central and South Asia 2021: Regional Connectivity: Challenges and Opportunities” conference, in Uzbekistan.

In a short statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the Afghan peace conference scheduled to be held in Islamabad from July 17-19 has been postponed until after Eid al-Adha, a holy Muslim festival.

The new dates of the said conference will be announced later, the statement added.

On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said the conference will provide a momentum to the ongoing efforts for peace in Afghanistan as a number of Afghan leaders have already confirmed their participation.

However, a senior official in the ministry said the conference has been delayed on the request of the Afghan president as he wanted to hold it after Eid.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment claims fell 26,000 to 360,000 last week, in line with market expectations, according to US Labor Department figures.

Analysts had expected 360,000 claims for the week ending July 10. The previous week’s figure was also revised upwards 13,000 from 373,000 to 386,000, the department said late Thursday.

It was the fifteenth time during the coronavirus pandemic that claims came in below 700,000, indicating a recovery in the labor market.

However, the unemployment rate rose to 5.9% in June from 5.8% the previous month, according to the figures.

Despite adding 850,000 jobs in June, the US still has 9.5 million unemployed workers.

More than 22 million people in the world’s largest economy lost jobs in March and April of 2020 due to the pandemic.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A total of 9,560 new companies were established in Turkey in June, up 113.4% on a monthly basis, the country’s top trade body said on Friday.

Some 1,226 companies went out of business last month, up 120% from the previous month, according to data released by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB).

It said 85.8% of the new firms were limited companies and 12.9% were joint-stock companies.

The top three fields of operation among new companies were wholesale and retail trade, construction and manufacturing.

In June, 1,293 companies with foreign partners were established.

A majority of the new companies, 39.7%, opened in Istanbul, followed by 9.4% in the capital Ankara, and 6.7% in the Aegean province of Izmir.

During the month, 120 cooperatives were also launched, according to the data.


A total of 54,669 new companies were set up in Turkey over the first six months of this year, marking a 24.9% annual rise.

In this period, 5,433 companies were liquidated, a 5.5% decrease compared to the first six months of 2020.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The central bank of Japan on Friday announced it will offer zero-interest loans to aid financial institutions in efforts to address the challenge of climate change.

Under a new funding program, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) will give “one-year, zero-interest funds to financial institutions for their loans and investments in such products as green bonds to tackle climate change,” Kyodo News reported.

“Rollovers will be allowed for an unlimited number of times under the scheme that will be effective until March 2031,” the report said.

The government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has vowed to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Many banks in Japan have stopped funding new coal-fired power plants.

The BoJ move is also seen to be in line with the European Central Bank and the Bank of England’s plan “to factor climate change considerations into policy,” the report said.

The US Federal Reserve, however, has expressed reservations, saying that “climate policy is for elected officials.”

On the recovery of the pandemic-hit economy, the BoJ said: “Japan’s economy has picked up as a trend, although it has remained in a severe situation due to the impact of COVID-19 at home and abroad.”

In its latest assessment, the bank said the Japanese economy will grow at 3.8%, a slight downward revision from its earlier projection of 4.0%.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Three-time NBA All-Star Bradley Beal will miss the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to “health and safety protocols,” the US national basketball team said on Thursday.

“Bradley Beal, who was placed under USA Basketball’s health & safety protocols on Wednesday, will remain in protocol & will be unable to participate in the Tokyo Olympic Games,” USA Basketball said on Twitter.

Beal, 28, a guard for the Washington Wizards, averaged 31.3 points per game this season to come second in the NBA.

USA Basketball added that Jerami Grant – a Detroit Pistons forward – has been placed under health and safety protocols “out of an abundance of caution.”

Grant had a 22.3 point-average in the 2020-21 NBA season.

Meanwhile, the US national team’s exhibition game against Australia on Friday night in Las Vegas was canceled for the same reason.

However, Team USA is still scheduled to face Spain on Sunday before the Olympic Games.

The US – the defending Olympic champions – will face France, Iran, and the Czech Republic in Olympics Group A, with their first match, against France, set for July 25.

The multi-sport event in Japan will take place from July 23 to Aug. 8 after being postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: Anadolu Agency