Acting Group Chief Executive Officer at Kuwait Finance House (KFH), Abdulwahab Al-Roshood received HE the Ambassador of The Republic of Turkey in Kuwait Ayşe Hilal Koytak and the accompanying Commercial Attache at the Bank’s Headquarters.

During the meeting, Al-Roshood reiterated the strong economic ties between Kuwait and Turkey, indicating KFH plays a significant role as a strategic partner in the Turkish economy and the Islamic finance industry in Turkey through KFH-Turkey.

He added that KFH-Turkey, founded in 1989, is a clear-cut example of the cooperation in Islamic finance between Kuwait and Turkey. KFH-Turkey, the largest participation bank in Turkey, has huge network of branches across Turkey, which makes its financial services accessible to huge population in Turkey.

Al-Roshood pointed out that KFH has participated in several major transactions to finance infrastructure projects in Kuwait and overseas. KFH has offered financing of Euro 200 million Credit facilities for Limak Insaat for the construction of a bridge in Turkey, and financing of KD124.6 million syndicated facility for constructing the new terminal of Kuwait International Airport. This project is part of Kuwait`s development plan “New Kuwait Vision”.

He explained “KFH offers a wide range of trade and financing solutions to investors in Kuwait and abroad. Our KT Bank AG in Germany, which is the first participation bank in the Euro zone, plays a key role in facilitating businesses by connecting Kuwait to Turkey to Europe. KFH offers instant cross-border payments service to beneficiaries at KFH-Turkey using Ripple’s technology. This service comes to serve customers who want to perform instant transfers to Turkey for personal expenses or investments.”

Al-Roshood emphasized the importance of strengthening economic ties between Kuwait and Turkey for achieving further prosperity and development. 

Meanwhile, HE Ambassador of The Republic of Turkey in Kuwait Ayşe Hilal Koytak said that KFH is one of the largest Kuwaiti investors in Turkey, indicating KFH’s subsidiary – KFH-Turkey has reached an asset size of 153 billion Turkish Lira and has 435 branches in Turkey in addition to its subsidiary KT Bank AG’s 5 branches in Germany. More importantly, KFH- Turkey is employing a huge number of Turkish people, which is a big contribution to Turkish labor market.

She added, during the meeting, “last year, the pandemic had a slight impact on our bilateral trade between Kuwait and Turkey”, indicating the Turkish economy was one of the few economies growing last year (1,8% growth rate) despite the negative effects of global COVID-19 pandemic.”

She pointed out that the Turkish economy continued to grow above market expectations (7% growth rate) in the first quarter of this year, noting of the 7% growth in the first quarter, 56% came from net foreign demand and investments, which is an indicator of balanced and healthy growth, and confirms the rapid recovery of Turkish economy from the global turmoil caused by the pandemic. This also highlights an enormous potential with many opportunities for greater cooperation between Turkey and Kuwait in all areas of the economy.

Koytak said: “I believe we can succeed not only a much higher bilateral trade volume, but also more mutual investments. Since 2002, 225 billion USD foreign investment has been directed to Turkey. There are more than 300 companies in Turkey having Kuwaiti investors. Total investment stock of Kuwaitis reached 2 billion USD.”