Turkey's key connection

摘要

A final financing agreement for Turkey's 421km Gebze-Izmir motorway project has been signed by nine banks, eight of which are Turkish. The agreement will be for around US$4.73 billion of the deal likely to cost in total more than $6 billion and which is the country's largest public-private partnership project. The banks are Deutsche Bank and Turkish banks Akbank, Garanti Bankasi, Finansbank, Is Bankasi, Halkbank, Ziraat Bankasi, Yapi Kredi and Vakfbank. Work has been going on since 2010 for the Trans-European Standard highway, scheduled to be finished in 2018. It will run from the town of Gebze on the north shore of Izmit Bay, part of the Sea of Marmara which is also part of the connecting waterway between the Black Sea and the Agean Sea. Almost immediately the highway will run south and across a new 3.3km suspension bridge spanning the bay - essentially a project within the project, called the Izmit Bay Crossing Project. From there it runs due south to Izmir, a major port and business centre on Turkey's Agean coast. Most of the highway will be six lanes and the project includes more than 40km of access roads. It should shorten the distance between Gebze and Izmir by more than 140km, mainly because it eliminates the trek around the bay to regain the road directly to Izmir.