Istanbul has always been the centre of the country’s economy because of its strategic location. In 2005, the city had a GDP of $133 billion, more than many other important cities, such as Singapore, Mumbai, Montreal, Milan, Cairo, Jakarta, Vienna, Delhi, Bangkok, Teheran, Johannesburg, Stockholm, Cape Town, Berlin, Athens, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Brussels.
The Istambul Stock Exchange was created in 1986 and is the country’s only financial market trading in equities, rights, government securities, credit certificates and corporate bonds and is the only market to do overnight transactions.
In 1993 it was decided to liberalize the gold market and two years later the Istambul Gold Exchange (IGE) was set up, thus breaking the Central Bank’s monopoly over lingots. The main international banks with operations in Turkey include Citibank, Merrill Lynch, J. P. Morgan, HSBC, ABN Amro, Fortis, ING Bank, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Banca di Roma, UniCredit, WestLB, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.
Since 1997 the IGE has also traded futures and gold options (the first derivatives to appear on the Turkish market), while other precious metals have been added since 1999.
Trading is open to both domestic and foreign organizations such as banks, private finance houses, precious metal brokers and stranieri provided they obtain Treasury authorization and abide by the IGE’s regulations.
Transaction are managed by brokers, with orders being transferred to a semi-automatic system under the supervision of a securities expert and based on precedence of entry time and price. Futures contracts, on the other hand, are handled completely automatically and are the Kilo Gold Future (1 kg of 995/1000 purity gold) and the 100-oz Gold Future (100 troy ounces of 995/1000 gold).
Operators must deposit funds with the IGE to secure against eventual losses caused to others and to guarantee observance of trading volume limits.

Rihitimcad. No. 231- 233 Karakoy, Istanbul, Turkey
Telephone : + 90 212 292 66 00
Fax : + 90 212 292 66 18
Email iab@gov.tr
Website : www.iab.gov.tr