Foreigners sell $1 bln in Turkish stock market in 2008

"Foreign investors have purchased shares amounting to nearly $2 billon from new initial public offerings in 2008, while they sold some $3 billion in stocks. We see a total of $1 billion outflow when we calculate these two figures," he said in a conference in Ankara.

However, Erol said that this should not be assessed as an outflow of funds from Turkey, only from the stock market. "These investors have exited from there (stock market) and moved over to foreign currency, and exited from there into real estate," he added.

Turkey’s position with regard to the global financial crisis would improve if the first half of 2009 passed smoothly, Erol also said when asked about the issue.