Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan unveiled a new cabinet on Wednesday, retaining Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek to manage the overheating economy and creating a new ministry to press a flagging EU membership bid, according to Reuters. "The coming four years will be a high-performance four years, and the first year will be an intensive working period," Erdogan told a news conference announcing his team. Erdogan, whose AK Party won an unprecedented third term in office in an election last month, has said he aims to replace a constitution that was drafted after a coup in 1980. Markets hope, however, that the government will prioritise the need to cool an economy that surged 11 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and could rack up a current account deficit of up to 10 percent of GDP this year. While Simsek keeps his post Zafer Caglayan, former trade minister, was named new economy minister. In the previous government, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan was responsible for the economy. Babacan has been retained as one of four deputy prime ministers, but Erdogan did not specify what Babacan's duties would be in the new cabinet. Erdogan will present his government's programme to parliament on Friday for a vote of confidence. Turkish financial markets, more preoccupied with eurozone debt fears after the downgrading of freshly bailed-out Portugal's credit rating, were mostly unmoved by new cabinet. Ahmet Davutoglu, the architect of NATO member Turkey's assertive foreign policy and closer ties to Middle East countries including Iran, stays as foreign minister. -- SPA
