Turkey announced a major investment in nearly 200 projects in southeastern Anatolia worth close to 500 billion liras ($14 billion, or €13.6 billion) to boost the region’s development and narrow the GDP gap between the traditionally more underdeveloped southeast and the rest of Turkey: a plan that also comes amid the start of the first peace negotiations in nearly a decade to end terrorism in the region.
In a major public media appearance alongside other authorities and government representatives, Turkey’s Minister of Industry and Technology Fatih Kacır announced from the southeastern city of Şanlıurfa that the Turkish government will invest a total of 496.2 billion liras – more than €13.5 billion – in a total of 198 projects in southeastern Anatolia between 2025 and 2028, with plans to develop digital agriculture, high-tech production and implement programmes to spur innovation in the region.
‘We will quickly carry out investments that will strengthen the economies of the 9 (big) cities in this region,’ the minister said, recalling that between 2003 and 2024 investments in southeastern Anatolia‘s development projects (the so-called GAP) have exceeded one trillion liras (€27.25 billion).
Among other measures, 214 billion liras (more than 5.8 billion euros) will be spent on new irrigation projects on 475,000 hectares of new land; in addition, the logistics infrastructure and connections between cities will be strengthened in order to promote tourism in the region. The new GAP project for the region foresees the creation of 570,246 new jobs by 2028: ‘With the implementation of these projects, we estimate an increase of 49,000 liras (1,335 euros) in annual per capita income in the region,’ the minister said.
According to 2023 data, per capita income in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa was €4,785, far below the average in Turkey, which stands at €12,749. The new GAP plan for the region aims to reduce these differences and stimulate the economic development of the south-eastern Anatolian region and its contribution to the national GDP. It should not be forgotten that the region suffered two devastating earthquakes in February 2023 that ravaged several cities, leaving more than 50,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed.
VOTE
EDITORIAL TEAM
🧿 About us
.
Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
…
📣 Your ADVERTISING on Hispanatolia
.
🤗 HELP US WITH A DONATION:
💗 Paypal
