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a monopoly respectively. Where there is competition in all but the financial services
and international trade sectors, CTCCB management finds it difficult to compete
successfully.
Despite the breadth of scope of the Co-operative Central Bank, its declared largest
single service was (in 1995) still the provisión of short term credit to agriculture,
mostly credits in kind and in the form of agricultural inputs 33 . Long term credit is
provided by the Central Bank which may use the Co-operative Central Bank as a
vehicle for development, though this is no longer common. The latter form of credit
runs from 3-6 years, though increasingly since its establishment in 1993, the
Development Bank has taken responsibility for all long term credit facilities. Long
term strategic investment in specific sectors, for reasons of long term economic
planning have been made by the Central Bank or, in the case of the government's
more recent priorities, by the Ministry Of Tourism. These institutions will subsidise
loans made to specific sectors by the banking sector, of which the CTCCB is a key
player. Its individual members, however, have rarely requested capital for business
expansión or diversification 34 . Most borrowing approved by the board of the
CTCCB is for the purchase of variable inputs or, increasingly, consumption
spending, cultural hospitality: weddings and circumcisions. In the north, the
application of co-operative credit from the CTCCB has not diversified much in
terms of its lending to individuáis and independent co-operatives. The organisation's
size and financial strength has meant that it has been exploited as a tool of wider
government policy, and as a substitute for public borrowing and expenditure 35
(see
Tables 5.1 and 5.2).
33 Interview with Suleyman Kiryagdi, op. cit.
34 ibid.
35 Interview with Ozalp Sanca, op. cit.
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