Turkey’s AK Party postpones bill to support investments, defence fund

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party has postponed discussions in parliament of a bill that includes changes to support investments and the country’s defence industry fund following strong criticism, a senior AKP lawmaker said.

“President Erdogan has instructed us to carry out a meticulous, detailed study of the bill. God willing, we will have completed the budget talks for 2015 in December, and the bill has been postponed until after those talks,” the lawmaker, Abdullah Guler, told reporters on Tuesday.

The bill, submitted to parliament last Friday, required companies and individuals to make additional contributions to the fund via their tax statements and also envisages additional fees for Turks buying and selling real estate and vehicles.

But the changes concerning credit cards – which envisage an annual contribution fee of 750 Turkish lira ($22) for cards with limits set above 100,000 lira – had prompted particularly strong criticism from consumers and economists.

Guler said last week that the bill aimed to raise revenues of 70-80 billion lira ($2 billion-$2.3 billion) for Turkey’s defence industry fund.

($1 = 34.2848 lira)

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Gareth Jones)