Central Bank to pay advance dividends

Turkey's Central Bank on Jan. 20 said it will distribute accumulated contingent reserves with annual profit, excluding last year's.

The decision came at its top huddle in the capital Ankara where stakeholders gathered to discuss and vote on the 2019 profit distribution.

The Extraordinary General Assembly also agreed to distribute the advance dividends of 90 percent calculated on the 2019 undue financial year of the bank.

On a separate note, the Central Bank announced on Jan. 18 that in order to support financial stability and bring out gold savings into the economy, the upper limit of the facility of holding standard gold was decreased from 30 percent to 20 percent of Turkish Lira reserve requirements.

By decreasing the upper limit, $1.7 billion equivalent of liquidity in terms of gold will be provided to the market, whereas 4.5 billion liras liquidity will be withdrawn from the market, the bank said.

The bank also increased the upper limit of holding standard gold converted from wrought or scrap gold collected from residents to 15 percent from 10 percent of lira reserve requirements.

As a result of this move, $300 million equivalent of liquidity in terms of gold will be withdrawn from the market, whereas 2 billion lira liquidity will be provided to the market.

Those adjustments in the limits also aim at strengthening the monetary transmission mechanism, the bank noted.