US firm to link Turkey to $2 trillion funding network

U.S.-based multinational alternative investment company National Standard Finance (NSF) will connect Turkey to a $2 trillion funding network that is set to bring in more foreign direct investment and help boost the economy, CEO Russell A. Duke has told Anadolu Agency.

The NSF has links to large foreign institutional and sovereign investors and has engineered an initiative for Turkey to increase foreign investment and trade, Duke said.        

Turkey will first receive a four-year $20 billion investment via the soon-to-be-established Turkish Gulf Fund, which will act as the managing entity between investors, institutions and governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and their Turkish counterparts to develop and invest in projects in Turkey, he said.        
"We feel confident that the Republic of Turkey has the opportunity to be a diamond in the rough to invest in long term among emerging economies while also offering more attractive yields to investors than the majority of other global market in the current economic environment," Duke said.      
  
The fund will benefit Turkey in several ways, he said.        

"Turkey's big problem is that they don't have liquidity. If you put this kind of liquidity into the market, these will make big movements in the monetary system," Duke said.        

Second, the initiative and the fund will make Western institutional and financial markets, as well as companies, more comfortable with the idea of investing in Turkey, he said, adding that it would also help the Turkish Lira appreciate.

"Once the lira gets stronger, that's going to be an indication that the economy will be more stable," Duke said.        

In 2015, Turkey's trade deficit was $63 billion. The...