Invest News DetailTurkish Daily News - Türkiye's convergence process with the European Union and macroeconomic stability should boost foreign interest in Turkish real estate, Akın Tuzun, head of Turkish equity research at Citigroup, said. Speaking at the Turkish Real Estate Summit organized by The Association of Real Estate Investment Companies (GYODER) in Istanbul, Tuzun noted Türkiye currently attracts around $3 billion foreign investment into the local real estate sector. “This is less than 0.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a low figure as such if compared to Eastern Europe, and particularly to Spain, Portugal and Greece.” The majority of all FDI inflow to Türkiye since 2003 has consisted of privatizations and asset sales, mainly in the banking sector. So far real estate investments have made some 17 percent of all FDI into Türkiye. “However, over the next decades energy, tourism and real estate will be the main areas of FDI inflow into Türkiye,” Tuzun said. “The sustainability of foreign direct investment (FDI) is the key for Türkiye's balance of payment dynamics and real estate FDI should play an important role in this. Despite the global turmoil, appetite for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and real estate seem strong. This is because investor profile for these assets, are not bothered by the short-term risk factors."