Turkey to hand over hundreds of homes, shops to Izmir quake victims: President

By Mehmet Tosun

ANKARA (AA) - Hundreds of homes and stores built to aid the victims of a major earthquake that shook the province of Izmir in western Turkey last year, will be handed over to their new owners on Friday, the country's president announced on Monday.

"We've completed the construction of a total of 741 independent sections, of which 596 are houses and 145 shops," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara, adding that these were built with an initial investment of 750 million Turkish liras (nearly $66 million).

"We built houses in Izmir with the same swiftness that we did in other disaster-hit areas. We carried out the greatest urban and earthquake transformation works in the history of Izmir," Erdogan said at the Presidential Complex, where the Cabinet meeting was held.

Last year in November, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake rattled Izmir province, leaving 115 people dead and injuring over 1,000.

He also noted that 795 houses and 157 stores that remain will be completed as soon as possible and handed over to earthquake victims in the province.

Turning to the country's economy, Erdogan said the government was "determined to do the right thing" for Turkey via investment, production, employment, and an export-oriented economic policy, instead of the vicious cycle of high interest-low exchange rates.

"The price increase due to the rise in exchange rates doesn't directly affect investment, production, and employment. Competitiveness in the exchange rate leads to an increase in investment, production, and employment," he said.

As a country with know-how and experience in financial crisis management, he said Turkey is decisive in seizing the opportunities that have emerged in the current critical times that the world is facing.

He also warned of opportunists making inexplicably exorbitant price hikes by using the rise in exchange rates as an excuse.