Türkiye is launching a broad-based regional incentive program aimed at strengthening investment across the Marmara region and reducing the economic burden on Istanbul by boosting the development of surrounding provinces.

The “Local Development Initiative Incentive Program,” coordinated by the Industry and Technology Ministry, will support projects in 11 provinces, seeking to unlock local production potential, accelerate strategic investments and reinforce the region’s role as a key investment hub.

Under the scheme, investors will be offered a wide range of incentives depending on project size and scope, including tax reductions, social security premium support, interest or profit-share contributions, land allocation and income tax exemptions.

The initiative foresees each project receiving up to over TL 300 million (nearly $6.7 million) in direct financial support, along with tax cuts of up to 50% of the investment value. Applications for the program will be accepted until May 15.

Cultural industry in Istanbul, rubber products in Bursa

The program outlines province-specific priority sectors to better distribute industrial growth and diversify regional output.

In Istanbul, support will focus on strengthening the entrepreneurship ecosystem through large-scale shared service hubs, vertical and smart agriculture, and investments in cultural industries, including design-oriented and circular production workshops.

In northwestern Bursa, dubbed Türkiye’s automotive capital, incentives will target high-value manufacturing areas such as aerospace and defense subcomponents, advanced rubber products, vehicle cooling systems and technical textiles.

Support for green hydrogen in Çanakkale

Çanakkale will prioritize value-added forestry products, integrated livestock farming, green hydrogen and its derivatives, and innovative products derived from olives and agricultural waste.

Industrial hub Kocaeli is set to receive support for high-specification electrical and pyrotechnic devices, elastomer-based railway components, water recycling technologies and earthquake-resilient advanced materials and testing systems.

In Sakarya, incentives will focus on smart metering systems, vehicle sanitation technologies, value-added agricultural production and industrial food processing machinery.

Geothermal greenhouses in Balıkesir, medical device production in Tekirdağ

Meanwhile, Balıkesir will promote geothermal greenhouse investments, integrated red meat processing facilities, thermal tourism developments and licensed olive oil storage projects.

Tekirdağ will prioritize automotive parts, structural components for defense and civil aviation, textile machinery and medical device manufacturing.

In Yalova, support will target critical components for marine vessels, greenhouse materials, agricultural value-added production and thermal-based health tourism investments.

Bilecik will focus on livestock farming, marble waste recycling, technical ceramics and agricultural processing.

Support for livestock investments in Thrace

Across the Thrace region, livestock and agri-based investments will be encouraged.

Kırklareli will support integrated cattle farming, modular furniture production and grape-based value-added products, while Edirne will prioritize smart agriculture technologies, insulation materials and high-value grain processing.

The program is designed to enhance production, technology and export capacity across the Marmara region while narrowing development gaps between provinces.

The initiative is said to contribute to more balanced and sustainable economic growth by spreading industrial activity beyond Istanbul.

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The European Commission on Monday proposed fully reinstating a long-suspended cooperation agreement with Syria, signaling a notable step toward re-engagement with Damascus after years of strained relations.

Under the agreement, tariffs on most industrial products from Syria are lifted.

EU member states still need to approve the reinstatement of the cooperation framework.

The European Union has been seeking to re-establish relations with Damascus after an anti-regime alliance led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew Bashar Assad at the end of 2024.

The EU lifted its economic sanctions on Syria in 2025. Al-Sharaa is invited to meet with EU leaders in Cyprus on Friday.

In January, the commission announced plans to support Syria with around €620 million ($730 million) in the years 2026 and 2027.

The deal – which abolishes customs duties on imports of most industrial products from Syria – was partially suspended in 2011 when Assad’s regime ruthlessly cracked down on protests at the start of the civil war.

The 27-nation EU has launched a new chapter with Syria since Assad’s ouster from power in December 2024 after over a decade of fighting that devastated the country and sent millions of refugees abroad.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced a 620-million-euro ($730 million) two-year financial support package during a visit to Damascus in January.

The EU could also look to strike a more ambitious deal to deepen ties with Damascus, diplomats said.

Some European countries have expressed interest in seeing refugees who came from Syria during the civil war return to their homeland.

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Developing country policymakers left last week’s IMF-World Bank meetings more frustrated than ever that successive external shocks are derailing efforts to tackle high debt, reform economies and deliver better lives for millions of citizens struggling to pay for food and fuel.

But unlike in the past, some officials and economists say this crisis could be the tipping point that drives countries to take more independent and regionally coordinated action.

The war, and the meteoric spikes it caused in oil and fertilizer prices, will weigh on global growth and drive up inflation even if it ends soon, the IMF and World Bank said.

The conflict also threatens to blow out the fiscal balances of countries that had just gotten back on track after debt defaults, such as Zambia and Sri Lanka. It is also eating into the buffers others built after the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and U.S. trade tariffs upended their economies.

“It’s like you got hit in the head many times. Once you got up and then you got hit again,” Chayawadee Chai-anant, assistant governor of Thailand’s central bank, told Reuters.

The IMF has lowered its 2026 growth forecast for emerging nations to 3.9% from 4.2% in January, but those projections could worsen if the war persists.

Reza Baqir, head of sovereign advisory services at Alvarez & Marsal, said countries making painful reforms, from debt restructuring to subsidy removal, are now left scrambling with fiscal balances destroyed by yet another crisis not of their making.

“It’s a depressing mood, and it is also a repeated demonstration of the consequences on bystanders, where due to developments not of their own making, they have to deal with a severe economic ​crunch,” Baqir told Reuters.

Crisis rather than solutions

Nigeria is one such example. In the past three years, it has removed costly fuel subsidies, eased foreign exchange rules and streamlined regulations to draw foreign investor cash.

“We find that we are doing all we can, and it is shock after shock, externally and exogenously created,” Nigerian Finance Minister Wale Edun told Reuters. “That sort of takes away from achievements and from our progress.”

Josh Lipsky, director of economic affairs at the Atlantic Council, said conversations with dozens of other financial leaders showed their patience was wearing thin.

“I sense the frustration they can’t actually deal with the big challenges they want to deal with. They want to talk debt. They want to talk about these things that define the decade but every meeting is just a crisis. And ​I’ve just felt a different sense this time of what’s next,” Lipsky said.

The IMF and World Bank, though, offered few solutions during the week. Top leaders instead cautioned countries against using energy subsidies to shield citizens while acknowledging that the latest hike in energy and food prices could foment social unrest and outward migration.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said 12 or more countries are seeking loans to help weather the shock, estimating demand at $20 billion to $50 billion, depending on the duration of the war.

The World Bank said countries could tap up to $25 billion in crisis response funds quickly, with up to $60 billion available over six months. World Bank President Ajay Banga, clearly hearing urgent pleas for help, said the bank could make up to $100 billion available by year’s end, if needed, by restructuring its balance sheet.

However, neither the IMF nor the Group of 20 (G-20), which had rushed to suspend debt service payments for the poorest countries in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, offered any new instruments.

Break the cycle

“What we saw this week was the bank and the fund effectively saying, ‘Don’t worry, we can do what we’ve done in the past,'” said Christina Segal-Knowles, a former senior White House official now with the Rockefeller Foundation.

“But you have a set of countries that are still ​vulnerable. Those tools have not put these countries back ⁠in a place where they’re sustainable.”

The world needs, she said, something that “breaks the cycle because otherwise, the next shock that we get to will be back in the same place.”

Longer-term loans, larger-scale financing and different forms of financing that allow countries to escape the “debt trap,” are also options, she said.

Edun, who also chairs the G-24 group of developing nations, called on the ​institutions to do more, but noted that amid drastic aid cuts and falling official development assistance, developing nations need to also focus on “self help, self reliance” and integration within ​regions, such as more trade on ⁠the African continent.

“I think the most important lesson is that there has to be a reliance on domestic resource mobilization within these countries,” he said during the G-24 panel.

Throughout the week, officials from Africa, Asia and Latin America said leaders in their regions were looking to boost their resilience to future energy shocks by shifting resources into renewable energy and taking advantage of other resources such as critical minerals to boost growth and create jobs.

Albert Park, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, said Asian economies were ⁠racing to protect ​themselves from the negative effects. Vietnam and Indonesia had already announced new investments in renewable energy and others would likely follow suit, he said.

But ​leaders are under pressure to act quickly, even as they look for lasting solutions.

World Bank forecasts show that a prolonged war could push an additional 50 million people into acute food insecurity, with some 10-15 million jobs lost in the near term alone.

“The cushion has been quite low, because it’s never ​recovered back all the way, so it’s thinner and thinner and thinner…especially for the fragile people,” Thailand’s Chai-anant told Reuters.

“That’s why this crisis, I think it’s going to be more widespread.”

Bangladesh could be hit by a widespread shutdown of mobile phone services without rapid improvements in fuel shortages sparked by the Middle East war, operators said Monday.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people imports 95% of its oil and gas, mostly from the Middle East. Shortages have hit the country hard, with queues at filling stations lasting as long as 12 hours.

The Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) said Monday that continued operations can no longer be sustained without the fuel needed to power facilities, including data centers.

“The situation has escalated beyond the operational control,” AMTOB wrote in a letter to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. “If these conditions persist, there is an imminent risk of large-scale telecom network shutdowns across significant parts of the country.”

The association said the impact has already begun.

“Mobile network operators are experiencing severe operational distress due to the prolonged unavailability of commercial power and the lack of assured fuel supply for backup systems,” the letter said.

AMTOB noted that data centers consume approximately 500 to 600 liters (132 to 158 gallons) of diesel per hour, amounting to nearly 4,000 liters per day per facility, which local fuel stations are unable to provide. “Multiple strategically vital telecom facilities are currently running on dangerously low fuel reserves,” the association said.

Network blackout

AMTOB Secretary-General Mohammad Zulfikar said shutdowns of data centers would create ripple effects across the wider network.

“A partial or complete network blackout could bring calls, internet, SMS and all other services to a standstill or cause severe disruption,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The internet may become painfully slow or go down entirely, as data centers are the command hubs where traffic is routed and controlled.”

The government hiked fuel prices Saturday, raising diesel by 15%, from 100 to 115 taka (93 cents) a liter, and petrol by 16%, from 116 to 135 taka a liter. The increase triggered demands from bus and water transport owners for fare adjustments.

Energy Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud told reporters Sunday that Bangladesh had to raise prices due to the global crisis. “The entire world has adjusted prices – even the U.S.,” he said.

Depots were ordered to supply more fuel to filling stations at the revised prices, but the move has so far made little impact.

Md Sagar, 30, a motorbike driver, said he has not seen any improvement. “I waited for three hours and moved only a few meters,” he told AFP. Another driver, Zakir Mia, said it took him 16 hours Sunday to refill his car.

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Oil prices rose on Monday on a re-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East war after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz at the weekend, just a day after reopening it, citing the United States’ blockade of its ports, and a second round of talks in Pakistan appeared to be uncertain.

However, lingering hopes for a deal to end the seven-week crisis continued to support Asian equities, even as Tehran said it was not currently planning to attend peace talks.

Crude plunged on Friday while U.S. stocks rallied after Iran said it would again allow ships to pass through the waterway, through which a fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) usually passes, citing the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that “we’re very close to having a deal,” adding that there were “no sticking points at all” left with Tehran, though Iran quickly pushed back, saying its stockpile of enriched uranium would not be transferred “anywhere.”

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dived more than 11% and Brent shed 9%.

But both contracts jumped sharply on Monday, days before the end of a two-week ceasefire, owing to the ongoing U.S. blockade and after an American destroyer fired on and seized an Iranian ship that tried to evade it. Tehran warned it would retaliate.

The blockade of Iranian ports has been a significant sticking point in negotiations between the two countries, and state broadcaster IRIB cited Iranian sources as saying “there are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-U.S. talks” in Pakistan.

The Fars and Tasnim news agencies had earlier cited anonymous sources as saying “the overall atmosphere cannot be assessed as very positive,” adding that lifting the U.S. blockade was a precondition for negotiations.

WTI jumped more than 7% at one point, while Brent piled on more than 6%.

There has so far been only a single, 21-hour negotiating session held in Islamabad on April 11 that ended inconclusively, though groundwork for fresh talks continued afterwards.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it,” Trump said in a social media post Sunday, while also renewing his threats against Iran’s infrastructure if a deal is not made.

But Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that any attempt to pass through the strait without permission “will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said the blockade was “a violation” of the cease-fire.

Still, Asian equities rose, tracking another record close for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in New York.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, Mumbai, Wellington and Manila were all up, helped by a resumption of a tech rally that characterized world markets before the war started on February 28.

But London, Paris and Frankfurt dropped.

The dollar, which has been a key safe haven during the crisis and fell sharply on Friday, advanced against its main peers.

Chris Weston at Pepperstone said traders were assessing “whether the cease-fire can be salvaged through this week’s diplomatic talks, with recalibration on the probability of military escalation.”

“Trump’s weekend social media posts raised the prospect of military re-escalation, though given the bar for this response is now set higher, some viewed this as a pure hawkish negotiating tactic ahead of this week’s diplomatic talks,” he added.

“Market participants understand that the path to a formal agreement (is) unlikely to be linear and remains vulnerable to sudden changes, so market players won’t be wholly surprised by a sentiment shift.

“However, without a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the cease-fire remained fragile.”

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Turkish conglomerate Sabancı Holding said Monday it will sell its remaining shares in cement maker Akçansa Çimento, according to an exchange filing, just days after agreeing to the sale of its shares in food retailer Carrefoursa.

Sabancı said Heidelberg Materials exercised its right of first refusal after a binding offer was made for a 39.72% stake in Akçansa, valuing the company at $1.1 billion on an enterprise value basis, subject to debt and cash adjustments.

Following the transaction, Germany’s Heidelberg Materials said its stake in Akçansa will double to 79.44%.

Akçansa operates three cement plants, 26 ready-mixed concrete plants, five aggregate quarries, and five cement terminals across five seaports in Türkiye’s Marmara, Aegean and Black Sea regions, Heidelberg Materials said.

Heidelberg Materials said Türkiye’s geographic position offers long-term strategic upside linked to future reconstruction and infrastructure demand in neighboring regions, including the Middle East and the Black Sea.

The Turkish holding also said an agreement was reached regarding the sale of its shares and shares of French retailer Carrefour in its Carrefoursa unit, a market chain operating over 1,000 stores in Türkiye.

According to the deal, Yeni Magazacılık A.Ş., owner of the A101 banner, will acquire the 89% stake held jointly by Carrefour (32%) and Sabancı (57%) in Carrefoursa.

Completion of the transaction remains subject to approval by the competition authorities and customary conditions.

Shares of Sabancı Holding were down 1.71% at 10:55 a.m. local time (07:55 GMT) while Carrefoursa stock plunged 9.38%.

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