For an outlook of what bne IntelliNews expects this year read our 2021 Outlook: It all hinges on Joe Biden.

Turkey’s new COVID-19 data is still fake.

Electricity consumption remained flat while card expenditures growth was below even official inflation in 2020. Official GDP growth will come at about 1.5%.

Fresh loan flow, or lira supply, is turning negative after ultra-strong growth. Millions in Turkey faced harsh poverty even during that growth, while loans were spent on buying gold, FX, real estate and so on by the more fortunate. With the loan flow cut, how long is the harder reality sustainable?

Istanbul-listed lenders plan sharp declines in lira loan growth in 2021.

On January 14, the first public reaction by the TOBB, the most influential business group with Erdogan, to the monetary tightening came in a written statement.

Lira breached on January 19 HSBC’s stop-loss at 7.53. Turkey ETF signalled outflows in the first two weeks of 2021.

Turkey’s cryptocurrency transaction volume 'surpassed $1bn per day in 2021'.

The government extended regulatory forbearance measures and credit guarantee fund for both banks and companies (See Section 8.1.4).

Akbank took over a boutique hotel and a shopping mall. Debt restructurings continue.

Turk Telekom will distribute additional dividends from 2019 profit as the dividend cap expired.

Turkish hotels are on fire sale (See Section 9.1.8). Passenger traffic at Turkish airports plunges 61% y/y in 2020.

Treasury, Vakifbank, Istanbul Municipality, TSKB, Yapi Kredi, Ziraat Bank sold eurobonds. More banks are awaited. Global Liman is heading to restructuring $250mn papers due November.

Turkish banks completed the autumn season for syndicated loan renewals (See Section 5.4). The spring season will be launched in April by Akbank.

Turkey’s 6.6bcm natural gas contract with Azerbaijan’s Socar will expire in April.

E-commerce in Turkey grew in 2020.

Google’s YouTube, China’s TikTok, France’s Dailymotion, the US’ LinkedIn decided to comply with the new law. Advertising bans were imposed on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest.