Albayrak confident of long-term prospects for Turkey's economy

The Hurriyet newspaper on Wednesday quoted Turkey's Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak as saying he did not see a long-term risk to the economy or financial system, despite current pressure.

"We do not see a big risk about Turkey's economy or financial system," Albayrak was quoted as saying by the newspaper, when he was asked about the biggest risk for 2019.

The Turkish lira was trading at 6.3300 to the US dollar at 09:30am (0630GMT) on Wednesday, weakening from Tuesday's closing rate of 6.2320.

The Istanbul bourse opened down 0.59 percent or 549.98 points at 93,316.96 points on Wednesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose on Tuesday to close up 0.85 percent at 93,866.94. Trading volume was 7.1 billion Turkish lira ($1.13 billion).

Turkey's lira has lost about 40 percent of its value this year. Turkish-US tension has fed into the economic and financial challenges. Tension between the NATO allies is being fuelled by US support for YPG terrorist in Syria, Washington's failure to extradite FETO terrorist organisation leader Fetullah Gulen, and US attacks on Turkey's economy over the house detention of a pastor charged with terror-related crimes.

Ratings agency Moody's on Tuesday downgraded 20 financial institutions.

For years, Turkish companies have borrowed in euros and dollars, to take advantage of lower rates.

That has exposed them to substantial currency risk, heightening concern about how banks may be hurt by the current issues facing the economic and financial systems.