Turkish Garanti sees 08 profit growth of 30-35 pct

ISTANBUL, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Turkey's Garanti Bank GARAN.IS CEO Ergun Ozen said on Saturday the bank expects profit growth of 30-35 percent in 2008, excluding one-off items.

He also told a news conference he saw the bank's Turkish lira loans growing 30 percent this year and foreign exchange loans expanding 40 percent.

On Friday the bank posted a 107.6 percent rise in 2007 net profit to 2.422 billion lira ($2.02 billion). Net profit, stripping out the impact of asset sales after tax, was 1.586 billion lira. (Reporting by Asli Kandemir)