Economy
Türkiye emerges as 3rd-largest country in IFC’s global portfolio
Türkiye stands out as the third-largest country in the global portfolio of International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of World Bank Group, a senior executive said on Sunday, detailing the institution’s priorities in the country.
International Finance Corporation’s Türkiye, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Director Lisa Kaestner said they are focusing on investments that can boost employment and raise productivity during a period of tightening liquidity conditions and rising volatility.
“IFC has invested more than $25 billion in Türkiye over the past 10 years. Türkiye stands out as the third-largest country in IFC’s global portfolio,” Kaestner told Anadolu Agency (AA).
Speaking to AA, she noted the country is strategically important for the World Bank Group, explaining that IFC’s priorities are shaped around a very concrete question: how private sector investments can support employment and competitiveness while also strengthening resilience.
Kaestner emphasized that, amid tighter liquidity and increased volatility, they are prioritizing investments that can create jobs, improve productivity, and accelerate the transition toward cleaner and more resilient value chains.
“Through our investments in manufacturing, logistics and value chains across the real sector, we support the competitiveness and growth of Turkish companies,” she explained.
“We help companies improve productivity, meet international standards, strengthen export capacity and shift toward higher value-added production that creates employment,” she added.
Moreover, Kaestner said IFC invested in Arçelik to support R&D, renewable energy and resource efficiency, and also financed Enerjisa to strengthen and modernize energy distribution infrastructure, including in regions affected by the earthquakes back in 2023.
Financial sector
In the financial sector, Kaestner said IFC works with private banks and non-bank financial institutions to provide longer-term financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), exporters and entrepreneurs.
“At the same time, we contribute to the development of capital market instruments that broaden the investor base. For example, IFC invested $100 million in Iş Bank’s digital bond, the first digital bond issued by a private bank in an emerging market,” she noted.
“The funds were directed toward supporting SMEs recovering in the earthquake-hit region,” she furthered.
Kaestner also underscored that IFC’s investment priorities in Türkiye align directly with the World Bank Group’s employment-focused agenda, noting that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) account for around 70.5% of employment in the country.
She said employment is largely an MSME story, but large-scale companies also make significant contributions.
“When leading employers grow, the employment impact extends beyond the company itself (as) suppliers, logistics firms and service providers also benefit from that growth. IFC’s role is to enable companies to invest, grow and create jobs at every stage.”
In practice, she explained, this means focusing not only on financing volumes but also on factors such as maturity, risk appetite and accessibility to financing, all of which determine whether job-creating investments can materialize.
These factors are especially critical in industrial modernization, clean energy, and large-scale logistics and infrastructure investments, where payback periods are longer.
Kaestner said that when companies gain access to longer-term and properly structured financing, they can invest in new equipment, skills and systems, compete more effectively, and sustain employment even during difficult conditions.
Mobilizing private capital
Kaestner said one of IFC’s key contributions in Türkiye is mobilizing private capital. She explained that IFC often acts as an anchor investor, helping build confidence in transactions and bringing together international creditors and investors through proper structuring and risk mitigation mechanisms.
This approach, she said, can include creating large-scale financing packages with commercial banks, supporting bond issuances and utilizing capital market instruments that broaden the investor base.
As an example, Kaestner noted that IFC mobilized private capital, with participation from commercial banks and asset managers, for a Eurobond issuance aimed at expanding Şişecam’s flat glass and solar glass production capacity, while also serving as an anchor investor in the issuance.
Kaestner emphasized that, for IFC, resilience means ensuring that investments continue and essential services operate uninterrupted even in volatile conditions.
“During periods when liquidity tightens and risk appetite declines, IFC steps in to support companies with strong fundamentals and priority investments through long-term, properly structured financing and risk-sharing,” she said.
“In addition to financing, our advisory and pre-investment work contributes to building a pipeline of bankable projects while supporting higher standards in environmental and social governance, corporate governance and inclusivity. In this way, we help ensure that private capital serves more resilient and sustainable growth.”
One of Meta Platforms’ artificial intelligence models accessed the internet on its own and hacked another company, the company said Thursday, the latest in a series of disclosures about AI models going rogue.
In recent weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic also have described instances of AI models going beyond humans’ instructions to access the web and find ways around other companies’ digital security.
Meta said in a statement that a “misconfiguration” during cybersecurity testing by Irregular, an independent company hired by Meta, inadvertently allowed one of its models to access the internet.
“The model subsequently exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously-reported instances with other companies,” the company said. Meta said it is investigating the incident and will issue a report when that’s complete.
The disclosure has added to worries about AI models acting autonomously.
Separately this week, the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute announced it had found “unsanctioned agent behavior” during cyber testing. In one case, an agent created fake online identities to pressure a person to approve use of malicious code.
“On investigation, we found that some of the agents being tested had engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organizations,” AISI said Tuesday. “We declared a security incident and, within roughly one hour of discovery, had contained it and begun a full investigation.”
During the agency’s testing, Anthropic and OpenAI models took “autonomous, unsanctioned action” on the internet. Some guardrails to prevent misuse had been disabled, the agency said.
“As was standard in our cyber testing, we had intentionally permitted internet access, and model-provider cyber classifiers were deliberately disabled – conditions that do not reflect how frontier models are made available to the public,” AISI said. “We do this to best assess the maximum capability of models.”
Anthropic said it is “grateful” for AISI’s work and added that it underscores the need for a broader conversation about how to safely evaluate AI agents as their capabilities grow.
OpenAI said the AISI incidents took place “in testing environments with reduced safeguards, under conditions that do not reflect ordinary use.” It added it will continue working with others across the industry to “strengthen shared practices for conducting evaluations safely as models become more capable.”
The first company to disclose a hack late last month, OpenAI said it had tasked the AI models involved with pursuing “advanced exploitation using complex attack paths” to test cyber capabilities, but the technology went to unexpected lengths. It apparently decided on its own to target Hugging Face, a well-known AI development hub and marketplace, to obtain information it needed to carry out a task.
A spokesperson for Irregular, the San Francisco-based AI security company, said the Meta episode involves a test-environment issue that was disclosed last week by Anthropic.
Irregular said it’s writing a paper to share “best practices for containment” to prevent such incidents in the future and securely run cyber tests.
Turkish construction company Kalyon Inşaat said Thursday it had begun construction work on the United Arab Emirates’ first high-speed railway, one of the Gulf region’s largest transport infrastructure projects.
The company is a part of an international consortium awarded the Abu Dhabi section of the Abu Dhabi-Dubai High-Speed Rail Project by Etihad Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE’s national railway network.
The flagship company of the Turkish conglomerate, Kalyon Holding, is carrying out the project alongside UAE-based National Projects and Construction and Trojan Tunneling, and China’s China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC).
The project forms part of Etihad Rail’s $13 billion plan to develop a passenger railway network spanning approximately 900 kilometers across the UAE.
Once completed, the line will reduce travel time between Abu Dhabi and Dubai from around 90 minutes to 30 minutes.
The railway will operate at speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour, making it the UAE’s first high-speed rail line. Existing railway lines in the country operate at speeds of around 200 km/h.
First of its kind
The full Abu Dhabi-Dubai high-speed railway will extend approximately 150 kilometers.
Under the consortium’s contract, the Abu Dhabi section will include around 97 kilometers of railway track and four stations.
The route will also feature an 11.2-kilometer twin-tube tunnel, one of the project’s major engineering components.
The railway is scheduled for completion in 2031.
Kalyon Inşaat Chair Murathan Kalyoncu said the project will be the first of its kind in the region and reflects the company’s engineering capabilities and growing international presence.
He described the project as not only a strategic investment for the United Arab Emirates but also an important milestone in global railway engineering.
“We will bring the engineering expertise and experience gained through large-scale infrastructure projects in Türkiye and around the world to the UAE’s first high-speed railway, while continuing to represent our country successfully in international markets,” Kalyoncu added.
U.S. workers again saw their slice of the U.S. economy drop to a record low in the second quarter amid an ongoing productivity boom that is producing output gains that are outpacing wage growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Thursday.
The so-called labor share of nominal gross domestic product (GDP), which BLS defines as the percentage of output that accrues to workers in the form of compensation, fell to 52.9% in the second quarter from 53.7% in the first quarter.
That was the lowest since the series began in 1947, BLS said, as it reported stronger-than-expected growth in second-quarter productivity.
The labor share has been falling for decades, driven by forces such as the diminishing breadth and power of organized labor and globalization that shifted relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs to low-cost overseas production centers.
More recently, the economy has seen technological advances like automation and potentially artificial intelligence that allow companies to increase output without substantially adding to headcount.
The trend essentially means that benefits of productivity gains are accruing more toward business owners and shareholders than to workers through wage gains.
Real weekly earnings – which measure wage growth against inflation – were essentially unchanged during the first half of 2026, though the most recent data for June snapped three straight months of falling readings and was the strongest in six years.
Retail sales across the eurozone dropped unexpectedly in June after rising moderately in May, suggesting that consumption continues to weigh on the economy in the second quarter, official data revealed on Thursday.
Retail sales decreased 0.3% in June from May, Eurostat reported. Sales had increased 0.4% in May but fell 0.4% in April.
The decline came in contrast to economists’ expectations for a slight increase of 0.1%.
ING economist Peter Vanden Houte said data reinforced the view that consumption was not a major driver of growth in the second quarter. Some improvement can be expected, but a genuine consumption boom looks unlikely at this stage, he noted.
Sales of food, drinks and tobacco fell 0.5% and that of non-food products slid 0.4%. Meanwhile, sales of automotive fuel in specialized stores increased 1.5%.
On a yearly basis, retail sales posted an expansion of 0.7%, which was weaker than the prior month’s 1.9% increase and economists’ forecast of 1.0% growth.
Retail sales in the European Union edged down 0.1% from May but increased 1.2% from the previous year.
Among member states of the EU, the largest monthly decreases in sales volume were reported in Finland, Romania and Germany. Meanwhile, Luxembourg, Portugal, Croatia and Sweden registered the highest increases.
Syria has achieved self-sufficiency in wheat production for the first time since the outbreak of its civil war in 2011, an agriculture official said Thursday, marking a milestone for the country’s food security after years of depending on imports.
As well as the war hitting the agriculture sector hard, Syria has seen drought in recent years, with the United Nations saying 2025 saw the country’s worst climate conditions in decades, also impacting wheat-growing land.
“There won’t be any need for (wheat) imports this season,” said Ahmed Qadoun, deputy general director of the Syrian Grain Establishment, adding that Syria had last been self-sufficient in 2010.
On Wednesday, state news agency SANA reported that the grain establishment had received 2.7 million tons of wheat from across Syria during this year’s harvest, exceeding the national annual requirement of 2.55 million tons.
Before the civil war erupted in 2011, Syria was self-sufficient in wheat, producing an average of 4.1 million tons annually.
But after the conflict and drought disrupted production, Syria’s dictator Bashar Assad used to rely on imports, particularly from ally Russia, for wheat.
Syria’s new authorities took power in 2024, and the country said last year that it had received wheat shipments and donations from countries including Russia and Iraq.
The United Nations said in June that more than 13 million Syrians, or over half the population, were facing acute food insecurity.
German giant Siemens is another company benefiting from the artificial intelligence investment boom, reporting its highest-ever quarterly industrial profit and raising its full-year guidance on Thursday.
Siemens said it was seeing strong demand for data centers used to process AI, as well as for AI-enabled software and devices used to control factories and buildings.
Sentiment was also improving from aerospace, defense and machine-building customers, prompting the company to raise its full-year profit guidance after beating third-quarter expectations.
“Our sharp focus on driving industrial AI and our strong positioning in attractive markets give us a solid foundation for our success,” CEO Roland Busch told reporters.
The company’s industrial AI products, which help customers speed up innovation and improve productivity, were driving growth, he added.
Siemens was also benefiting from strong demand from the electronics and semiconductor makers, many of which are expanding capacity to supply AI-related equipment and chips.
“There is tremendous demand for electronics,” Busch said.
“They are building more and more factories, and they need to be automated, which is where Siemens’ business comes in.”
Siemens was working with nine of the Top 10 largest data center providers, he said, while orders had increased by a triple-digit percentage in the first nine months of its 2026 fiscal year.
Highest quarterly industrial profit
Companies like Siemens, Swiss rival ABB and France’s Schneider Electric are seeing surging demand as Big Tech races to add data centres, chips and electricity capacity for AI training and operation.
Capital spending by five of the largest technology companies, a key driver of the global data-centre boom, is expected to rise 75% in 2026 from more than $400 billion in 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in April.
For the quarter to the end of June, Siemens reported industrial profit rising 25% to 3.52 billion euros ($4.09 billion), its highest quarterly figure, beating forecasts of 3.18 billion euros in a company-gathered consensus.
Revenue rose 7% to 20.79 billion euros, ahead of forecasts for 20.64 billion euros, while orders picked up 13% to 27.90 billion euros, also a quarterly record.
Its shares still fell 5.2% in mid-morning trading.
Up to Wednesday’s close, they had gained nearly 20% from the beginning of the year to hit a record high at 291.50 euros in the session.
The company also said it had agreed with German tax authorities on the treatment of Siemens Healthineers shares that it plans to distribute to investors following the planned spin-off, meaning the distribution would be tax-free for Siemens shareholders.
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