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be analysed properly without taking into account the new settlement along and around Kanal Istanbul [a planned $30bn shipping canal designed to bypass the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul], plans to build a new city for two to three million people in northwest Istanbul, the North Istanbul Highway, and the third bridge on the Bosphorus.” Karlitekin explained how Istanbul Airport is only one part of a huge plan to spread Turkey’s largest city northward. This, he said, was a huge strategic mistake in political, economic, demographic, ecological and environmental terms.
Turkey is working to raise the number of its air passengers to 450mn annually, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turhan has said. Over the last 15 years Turkey has seen its number of annual air passengers rise from 15mn to 210mn, according to the minister. Turkey’s airports authority projects 7% CAGR passenger traffic growth at the country’s airports until 2020 while the IATA expects local air traffic to grow at 4.7% CAGR in the next two decades. Last year, a total of 210mn passengers used Turkey’s airports, up from the previous year’s 193mn. World air traffic is expected to double in 20 years. According to Turhan, 4.3bn passengers used airlines worldwide, while 35% of the globe's trade and 90% of its e-commerce were carried out via air links in 2018. The country’s new main international airport, which officials want to turn into the world’s biggest flight hub, was fully launched in early April after several months of delays. Istanbul Airport will initially serve 90mn passengers annually. If it reaches its potential full annual capacity of 200mn passengers— with the completion of all four phases of its development, with six runways by 2028—Istanbul Airport would become the busiest international global aviation hub, with flights to over 350 destinations around the world.
9.1.4 Construction & Real estate sector news
The contraction in Turkish home sales gathered pace in April with property purchases declining by a sharp 18% on an annual basis to 84,403 units, data from statistics office TUIK showed. The drop came on top of the 5.3% y/y and 18% y/y declines recorded in March and February, respectively. Turkey’s ongoing economic problems—such as high inflation, high unemployment and the fast depreciation of the Turkish lira –have discouraged potential property buyers, while the election turbulence seen at the end of March might also have weighed on consumer demand, leading potential homebuyers to postpone purchase decisions until the dust settles and the economic and political outlook become clearer. The government has granted tax reductions on home sales and offered cheap housing loans through state-run banks to keep the flagging construction industry afloat, but those efforts do not seem to be having the hoped for impact.
Mortgage sales collapsed in April, dropping by 61.3% compared to the same month in 2018, according to TUIK. In Istanbul, the country’s largest and richest city, home sales were down 11% y/y to 15,000 units. Ankara saw a sharp 27% y/y contraction in the housing market., with 7,500 homes sold. In Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, home sales declined by 25% on an annual basis to 4,800 units. However, TUIK reported that property sales to foreign nationals soared 82.1% y/y to 3,720. As was the case throughout recent months, Iraqis topped the list of foreign buyers with 533 properties. They were followed by Saudis with 395, Iranians with 332 and Russians and Kuwaitis with 202 each. The strong interest in Turkey’s real estate market from people of Middle Eastern nations has been driven by a "golden visa" scheme that offers Turkish citizenship in exchange for a certain level of real estate investment. In September, the government cut the offer’s investment threshold from $1mn to only $250,000.
TUIK also reported that home sales across the country declined by 16% y/y to a total of 340,836 units in the first four months of the year.
In 2018, 1.37mn homes were sold in Turkey, down from 1.4mn units sold in 2017.
94 TURKEY Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com