Economy
Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen named Europe’s fastest-growing airport in H1
Türkiye’s second-largest airport became Europe’s fastest-growing aviation hub in the first half of 2026, according to a European airport trade body on Thursday.
Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport increased its passenger traffic by 6.4% year-over-year in the January-June period, a report by the ACI Europe said.
That marked the highest growth rate in the “Majors” category, which includes European hubs handling more than 40 million passengers.
ACI Europe said passenger traffic at European airports rose 2.6% in the first half of the year compared with the same period a year earlier.
The traffic growth slowed from 4.3% in the first quarter to 1.3% in the second quarter. Domestic passenger traffic increased 3%, while international passenger traffic rose 2.5%.
According to the report, passenger traffic at airports across Türkiye increased 2.8% in the first six months of the year.
Growth at Sabiha Gökçen, located on Istanbul’s Asian side, exceeded both the European and national averages.
The report said Barcelona Airport ranked second in the “Majors” category with 4.4% growth, followed by Madrid Airport with 4.2%, Istanbul Airport with 1.6% and Rome Fiumicino Airport with 0.3%.
London Heathrow remained the busiest European airport, welcoming a record 40 million passengers in the first half of the year, a 0.2% year-over-year increase.
The British hub kept being closely followed by Istanbul Airport, which increased its passenger count by 1.6% to 39.84 million.
Ford is preparing for the possibility that Chinese automakers could enter the American market in the next five to 10 years, even though the country has erected numerous trade barriers to cars from China, the company’s CEO Jim Farley told employees on Thursday.
That’s according to a report by Reuters, which cited three people who viewed the meeting.
Farley has been among the most vocal about how competitive Chinese auto giants like BYD are in the industry. Ford is preparing to roll out a family of affordable electric vehicles that it engineered from the ground up to match the cost and efficiency of the Chinese companies.
The Ford chief, along with other senior leaders, said in a question-and-answer portion of a town hall that it is more likely Chinese companies would enter the market at the latter end of that range. The comments come as the U.S. Senate is pushing to expand a ban on Chinese car sales in the world’s second-largest and most lucrative auto market.
A Ford spokesperson declined to comment on discussions that took place during a private meeting with employees.
Leaders at the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker have previously warned that China was on America’s doorstep, but have not been as specific with the time frame as executives were in the Thursday meeting.
Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford spoke on the topic earlier this month.
“We have to go toe-to-toe with China,” Ford said at an Axios event. “We can’t expect to keep them out forever, and we have to be able to beat them at their own game.”
Chinese automakers have gained significant market share in neighboring Mexico, and under a trade deal with Canada are allowed to sell a limited number of EVs there. Auto industry experts see Canada, which is very similar to its U.S. neighbor, as a test market for Chinese automakers that are eager to sell to American consumers.
American consumers have signaled increasing interest in these models, surveys show, especially as affordable electric options are scant.
The U.S. currently blocks Chinese electric vehicles through tariffs of about 100%, in addition to U.S. Commerce Department rules banning Chinese software by model year 2027 and hardware by model year 2030.
The connected-vehicle rules were adopted in January 2025 under U.S. President Joe Biden, based on national security concerns around data privacy, and have been kept in place under the Trump administration. Automakers, including Ford, have worked to obtain authorizations under the rule to continue selling some China-produced vehicles in the United States.
While the automaker is not yet competing with China in the U.S., it certainly is abroad.
In an attempt to revive sales in Europe’s cut-throat market, where Chinese automakers are gobbling up market share, Ford recently announced a joint venture with China’s Geely. While the partnership was criticized by some U.S. lawmakers, Ford said Chinese competition in the region was prompting every carmaker to get “leaner and smarter,” which was the goal behind the Geely deal.
Türkiye’s unemployment rate fell 0.5 percentage points month-on-month to 7.6% in June, marking the lowest level since monthly records began in 2005, official data showed on Thursday.
The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over decreased by 168,000 from the previous month to 2.69 million, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
The unemployment rate stood at 6.5% among men, and 9.8% among women.
The number of employed people rose by 227,000 month-on-month to 32.73 million in June, while the employment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 48.9%.
The employment rate was 66.1% for men and 32% for women.
Türkiye’s labor force expanded by 58,000 people to 35.42 million, with the labor force participation rate edging up by 0.1 percentage points to 52.9%.
The participation rate was 70.7% among men and 35.4% among women.
Youth unemployment, covering the 15-24 age group, dropped by 1.8 percentage points from the previous month to 12.8%.
The youth unemployment rate was estimated at 10.4% for men and 17.3% for women.
The composite measure of labor underutilization, which includes unemployment, time-related underemployment and the potential labor force, declined by 2 percentage points to 28.8%.
The governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT), Fatih Karahan, has visited Damascus for talks with senior Syrian officials, marking the first visit by a Turkish central bank governor to Syria since 2010.
Karahan began his visit with a meeting at the Turkish Embassy in Damascus with Türkiye’s ambassador to Syria, Nuh Yılmaz. He later met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani during a visit to the Foreign Ministry.
The Turkish central bank governor then held talks with Syrian Central Bank Governor Mohammed Safwat Raslan.
During the meeting, the two sides agreed to establish reciprocal deposit accounts between their central banks, a step aimed at strengthening financial cooperation.
They also agreed to expand technical and institutional cooperation between the two central banks, provide technical support to the Syrian Central Bank and facilitate commercial and financial transactions between the two countries.
As part of the visit, Karahan and Raslan visited the graves of Turkish martyrs at the Umayyad Mosque and the tomb of Saladin, where they offered prayers.
The delegation later toured Damascus’ Old City, visiting the Anbar School, the historic Khalid al-Azm Palace and the Assad Pasha Khan.
Karahan concluded his visit with a trip to Mount Qasioun, where officials briefed him on the planned Qasioun Tour tourism project.
In a post on X, Karahan thanked Syrian officials for their hospitality and expressed confidence that closer cooperation between the Turkish and Syrian central banks would contribute to the economic prosperity of both countries.
“I believe the bonds of friendship and cooperation between our central banks will provide a strong foundation for the shared prosperity and economic development of our countries,” he wrote.
Raslan also said in a post on social media that he was pleased to host Karahan in Damascus.
“What brings us together goes beyond official protocol. It is the bonds of brotherhood and friendship. With this understanding, we are building meaningful partnerships, strengthening our relations and opening new avenues of cooperation for the benefit of our peoples and for a stronger future for both countries,” Raslan said.
Türkiye and Moldova discussed measures to deepen economic and strategic cooperation, including in trade, defense technologies and investment, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said on Thursday.
Bolat met Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Eugen Osmochescu and Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatii at the Trade Ministry in Ankara.
The Moldovan officials visited Türkiye for the first Türkiye-Moldova Defense Industry Cooperation Meeting.
During the talks, the sides reviewed steps to accelerate bilateral trade, expand strategic partnerships in the defense industry and technology sectors, and increase mutual investments, Bolat said on Turkish social media platform NSosyal.
Türkiye is determined to advance its economic and strategic cooperation with Moldova through a shared vision and strong political will, he added.
Bolat described Moldova as a friend and strategic partner, saying the two countries would continue carrying their long-standing relations into the future through concrete steps.
Türkiye’s economic confidence index rose 0.9% month-on-month to 99.8 in July, official data showed on Thursday.
The index increased from 98.9 in June, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Despite the monthly improvement, the index remained just below the 100-point threshold separating an optimistic outlook from a pessimistic one.
The consumer confidence index increased 2.2% from the previous month to 89.8, while the services confidence index rose 1.4% to 112.
Confidence in the construction sector climbed 0.6% to 83.5.
Meanwhile, the real sector confidence index, covering the manufacturing industry, fell 0.8% to 101.2.
The retail trade confidence index declined 1.6% to 111 in July.
The index figures are seasonally adjusted, except for the consumer confidence index, which is not affected by seasonal factors.
The U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, keeping borrowing costs steady while putting renewed focus on Chair Kevin Warsh’s pledge to bring inflation back to the central bank’s 2% target.
The widely expected decision to leave the benchmark interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range drew dissents from three of the 12 members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee who “preferred” a quarter-percentage-point hike at this meeting. Those same three, the presidents of the Fed’s Cleveland, Dallas and Minneapolis regional banks, had also dissented at Jerome Powell’s final meeting as central bank chief in late April, that time in favor of removing the implied promise of lower rates.
Warsh, who took over as head of the Fed in May, has said he has “no tolerance” for inflation that has been running above the central bank’s target for more than five years, and up until last month was accelerating as the war in the Middle East pushed up global fuel and food prices, and investment in data centers and other spending tied to artificial intelligence drove up demand.
“Inflation remains elevated relative to the Committee’s 2% goal,” the Fed said in a short policy statement after the end of its latest two-day meeting. It replicated word for word all of the June 17 statement’s assessment of the economy.
The Fed said economic activity is “expanding at a solid pace,” noting, as it did in June, that job gains “have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.”
In leaving the policy rate pinned in the range it has been since December, Fed policymakers are embracing the idea that current borrowing costs are creating enough friction in the economy to reduce any inflation that isn’t, like the effect of tariffs on goods prices, expected to fade on its own.
Warsh has said little about the mix of risks and nothing about the outlook for the policy rate, though he has expressed the expectation that rising productivity aided by AI will allow the economy to grow faster without also pushing up inflation.
Financial markets ahead of this week’s meeting had priced in about a one-in-three chance of a rate hike and, absent such a move at this week’s meeting, nearly a 100% chance of an increase in September. By then, Fed policymakers will have in hand two more monthly readings on inflation and the jobs market, giving them a better picture of whether the cooling price pressures evident last month have continued.
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