Turkey Looks To Ignite Its Stock Market By Going Public

Turkey’s stock exchange — Borsa Istanbul — said on Tuesday that it is planning to go public, in Ankara’s latest move to jump start its lagging $220 billion equity market, Reuters reports.

Borsa Istanbul, the nation’s sole stock exchange, is planning to list up to 43 percent of its capital through the sale of the bulk of its shares which is held by the national Treasury, according to the report.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had said in January that he was looking to bring Istanbul into the upper echelon in the realm of global finance by becoming one of the world’s top 10 financial hubs, an ambitious target given the challenge from other emerging market rivals such as Dubai.

Reuters said that the Turkish stock exchange didn’t say how it was planning to spend the money from its capital raising, but said that it may look to bolster its technology in an effort to better compete for business from hedge funds and high-frequency traders.

Istanbul’s $220 billion stock market is the 29th largest stock exchange in the world, but it lags behind some emerging market rivals, such as the Johannesburg exchange, which is valued at over four times that of Istanbul’s exchange, even though South Africa’s economy is less than half the size of Turkey’s, Reuters said.