No Time to Slow Down
Deadly terrorist attacks, a failed coup
and a plunge in tourism revenue haven’t
slowed Turkey’s ambitious megaproject
plans. In fact, the bad news may be fueling
the projects.
“Particularly after the [2016] coup
attempt, the megaprojects have become
a symbol of national resilience,” author
Mustafa Akyol told The Christian Science
Monitor.
Turkey’s megaprojects include a US$24
billion airport in Istanbul, a US$7.5 billion
highway from Istanbul to Izmir and a
mosque that can hold more than 37,000
people. They are all under construction.
But some wonder where the money
for these projects will come from. “There
are a lot of question marks about these
schemes,” Atilla Yeşilada, an analyst for
GlobalSource Partners in Turkey, told the
Monitor. “They are essentially [President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s] ego projects.”
Foreign investors could be scared away
by continued violence and heavy borrow-
ing. “There comes a point when the inter-
national community won’t lend to you,”
Mr. Yeşilada told Reuters news agency.
Nevertheless, President Erdogan is
planning another massive initiative: a
45-kilometer (28-mile) canal and megacity estimated to cost US$20 billion.
Canal Istanbul would connect the Black
and Marmara seas, allowing the country
to relieve shipping traffic in the heavily
traveled Bosphorus. Some critics call the
project unrealistic, and the bid schedule
has already been pushed back several
times. —Karina Corona
Renderings of
Istanbul’s new airport
terminal and control
tower, below
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