* Photograph: Murat Kula / İstanbul - AA
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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the "New Horizons in Alternative Finance" program held at the Marmara University Presidency Building today (September 9).
"It is a fact that the actual source of 2008 financial crisis is the US and Europe", Erdoğan indicated and stated the following in brief:
"Our civilization and culture take the human as their center. For us, a system that is constantly fostering injustice need to be discussed in all aspects. We stand up against the system based on interest not only because of our belief, but also because the humane burden of the system has increased.
'Financial architecture instead of interests'
"Alternative financial transactions are swiftly becoming more widespread in the world. I believe that, in future's world, the system based on interest will be replaced with a new financial architecture. The rate of preference for new financial models is gradually increasing.
"In the forthcoming period, we will take bolder and more determined steps in terms of alternative finance and, thereby, we will bring our country to its well-deserved place in that regard.
"The ones who dragged the streets into chaos with Gezi incidents [in 2013] were also targeting our economy. They are targeting our economy by calling on [people] not to consume.
İstanbul Financial Center project
"We expect that this project [İstanbul Financial Center] will be realized in 2022 the latest with the support and efforts of our related institutions.
"Deprived of loans when it needed them the most, our real sector has been, in a sense, undermined. Several firms had to suspend production though they did not have any problems in their balance sheets.
"They talked about participation banking from the very beginning. I have always been against it. A system without interests is a financial system of participation. Why should we use a concept that would contradict each other? One of them denotes exploitation.
"The necessary support should be provided to the real sector. With our new development plan, we are adopting a series of precautions to increase the share of capital market.
'Target in participation finance is 15 percent'
"We have set important targets in the new development plan to achieve the desired level in participation finance. Our target is that the share of participation finance will reach 15 percent in banking assets as of 2025.
"We expect support from everyone about it. Participation finance should not act with the interest rates of banking system." (PT/SD)
