ANKARA The World Bank will give financial help to Turkey to enact an economic recovery program, the bank's Vice President Johannes Linn said on Friday.

"International experience shows that the key to a quick economic recovery is the sound implementation of the program's initial phases," Linn told reporters after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

"The World Bank will give financial and technical help to Turkey, along with other international partners, in the implementation of the program," he added.

Linn said that the additional credits would be used for the restructuring of the weak and crowded banking sector, agricultural reforms, and projects in the fields of education, health and social welfare.

"We are still discussing the amount of the credit, but what is important today is to speed up the financial help," he said.

A severe cash crunch, triggered by fears of political instability, forced the government on February 22 to abandon a pegged currency regime and float the lira, causing the currency to lose more than 30 percent of its value against the dollar.

The decision also broke the backbone of a three-year four-billion dollar stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and made the revision of macro-economic targets inevitable.

The government aims to finalize the new program by mid-April and submit it to the IMF for a final approval in late April.

Turkey's Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, who was specially brought in to put the economy on track, has previously pinned the amount of foreign aid Ankara needs for the program at 10-12 billion dollars.

The IMF and international creditors, however, have said they can help only after turkey comes up with a credible reform project.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the government has come against nationwide demonstrations by frustrated shopkeepers protesting rising prices and the handling of the economic crisis, AFP reported.

(IRNA)