June 24, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1427

ANKARA, June 23: The Turkish Central Bank said on Friday that it would hold an emergency meeting at the weekend to discuss measures to curb market turbulence as the currency and bonds continued to tumble.

Its monetary policy committee will convene on Sunday for its second extraordinary meeting this month and will make a statement afterwards to announce any decisions, the bank said on its website.

Turkish markets have been in turmoil since May as foreign investors grew nervous amid a global sell-off in emerging markets, political friction at home and higher-than-expected inflation figures.

The Turkish lira, which has lost about 23.5pc of its value since May, was down to 0.58 dollars on Friday.

The interest rate on the benchmark April 9, 2008 bond shot up to 21.03pc from 19.52pc on Thursday while the national index of the Istanbul stock exchange lost 3.2pc to close the day at 33,132.3 points.

The losses came a day after Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan announced plans to scrap withholding tax for non-resident investors and reduce the withholding rate for domestic investors from 15pc to 10pc in a bid to secure cash flow into markets.

—AFP