Economy
Construction sector’s output rises nearly 16 percent
ISTANBUL
The construction sector production index increased for the third month in a row on an annual basis in January.
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The index, which was up 14.4 percent in December, rose by 15.5 percent year-on-year.
The construction of buildings index increased by 18.2 percent, the civil engineering index rose by 12.3 percent and the specialized construction activities index was up by 8.5 percent in January 2025, compared with the same month of the previous year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on March 14.
The headline production index for the construction industry increased 5.5 percent in January month-on-month, slowing from 6.2 percent in December.
The construction sector grew by 9.3 percent in 2024 from the previous year, according to the latest GDP data.
The construction industry’s growth rate surpassed the Turkish economy’s expansion, which was 3.2 percent in 2024.
The industry grew by 8.7 percent in the last quarter annually, easing from 11.1 percent in the third quarter.
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The housing market expanded for the eighth month in a row in February.
Some 113,000 homes were sold in the country last month, marking a 20.1 percent increase from a year ago.
In the first two months of 2025, the housing market grew by 29 percent annually with total home sales at 224,991 units.
Türkiye generated a combined 442.2 terawatt-hours of electricity from solar and wind power between 2015 and 2025, according to data from the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry released Monday.
The output helped avoid $21.5 billion in coal imports and an estimated 354 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the ministry said.
The release coincided with the World Zero Emissions Day, observed on Sept. 21 since 2008 to raise awareness of the impact of fossil fuels, reduce carbon footprints and promote renewable energy.
Türkiye generated 11,847 gigawatt-hours of electricity from solar and wind in 2015, replacing electricity that would have required around $300 million worth of imported coal and avoiding an estimated 9.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the ministry said.
Renewable generation increased over the following decade, reducing the potential carbon emissions associated with fossil-fuel-based power generation.
Between 2015 and 2025, the 442.2 TWh generated by solar and wind was equivalent to electricity that would have required $21.5 billion in imported coal or $43.3 billion in imported natural gas, according to the ministry.
If the same amount of electricity had been generated entirely from imported coal, about 354 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions would have been avoided. If it had instead been generated entirely from natural gas, the avoided emissions would have amounted to about 177 million tons.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Türkiye was continuing to maximize its renewable-energy potential as part of its targets for net-zero emissions by 2053 and greater energy independence.
“Between 2015 and 2025, the 442.2 TWh of electricity we generated from wind and solar prevented carbon emissions of up to 354 million tons,” Bayraktar said in a post on the social media platform X.
He said Türkiye had also avoided tens of billions of dollars in fossil-fuel imports while expanding renewable energy.
Bayraktar said Türkiye had risen to fifth place in Europe and 11th globally in renewable energy by installed capacity and investment, and reiterated the country’s target of reaching 120 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2035.
The shares of solar and wind power in Türkiye’s electricity generation reached 11.6% and 12.1%, respectively, as of this July.
Solar power’s share of electricity generation rose 28-fold from 0.4% in 2016, while wind power’s share increased from 5.7% to 12.1% over the same period.
The rise in renewable generation was accompanied by a significant expansion in installed capacity.
Türkiye’s total electricity generation capacity reached 126,476 megawatts (MW) at the end of July. Solar accounted for 27,507 MW, or 21.7% of total installed capacity, while wind capacity reached 15,358 MW, representing 12.1%.
Combined solar and wind capacity stood at 42,865 MW, accounting for 33.8% of Türkiye’s total installed electricity capacity.
Solar power generation also reached a new monthly record in July after setting a previous record in June. Solar-generated electricity totaled 5.37 billion kilowatt-hours in July, the highest monthly level on record.
Iranian airlines will have trouble functioning globally in two days under the weight of American sanctions, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Monday, as the Trump administration seeks to keep pressure on Tehran.
On Sept. 23, Wednesday, “all the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world,” Bessent told CNBC in an interview.
“If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets, or you will be knocked out of the dollar system,” he added.
The war in Iran started after the United States and İsrael launched joint strikes in late February.
Tehran countered by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for energy transit, causing global oil prices to surge as the conflict spread in the Middle East.
Earlier this month, the United States imposed sanctions on “all remaining Iranian airlines” that had yet to face such penalties.
The Treasury Department also took aim at targets for supporting Iran’s aviation sector, including firms based outside Iran.
Bessent previously vowed the United States would declare “economic D-Day” on Iran and pledged to choke off Tehran financially.
Bessent’s comments came a day after he met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for economic talks laying the groundwork for President Donald Trump’s summit this Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
China is one of Iran’s top economic partners and diplomatic backers.
Iran’s aviation sector has long grappled with sanctions, which have restricted its ability to acquire aircraft, spare parts and maintenance services.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) briefly climbed past $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time on Monday, marking a milestone for the chipmaker, which joined a small group of competitors with a similar valuation as investors bet on its expanding role in artificial intelligence computing.
The company’s shares were last up 9% at $610, after surging to an all-time high of $613.92, creating a valuation of just over $1 trillion.
The milestone caps a stellar rally for the Santa Clara, California-based AMD, regarded as the closest rival to AI bellwether Nvidia for graphics processing units (GPUs).
It becomes the fourth U.S. chipmaker to top a $1 trillion valuation, after Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron. Nvidia crossed the mark in 2023 and is now the world’s most valuable company, worth more than $5 trillion.
AMD has accelerated its AI product launches and moved beyond selling individual chips to offering complete systems that combine processors, networking gear and related hardware, helping it compete with Nvidia’s products.
The company is also benefiting from rising demand for central processing units used alongside graphics processors in servers handling inference. That has helped AMD take market share from Intel.
Early last month, AMD forecast quarterly revenue above Wall Street estimates, which fell short of lofty investor expectations, sending its stock down over 7% on the day. Since then, it has leaped over 26%.
Most chip stocks surged on Monday, with Intel jumping around 11%, Qualcomm rising 4.1% and the broader chips index gaining 2.6% to a one-month high.
Türkiye has extended the liquidation period of scores of investment funds at the center of a liquidity crunch that prompted authorities to intervene, while detaining more people and freezing assets linked to executives.
Authorities stepped in last week to shore up market stability after some investment funds defaulted on redemption requests, triggering a sharp selloff in Türkiye’s benchmark stock index. The measures helped the index recover some of its losses.
As part of the intervention, the Capital Markets Board (SPK) mandated Ziraat Bank and Işbank to oversee the liquidation of 131 investment funds managed by seven portfolio management companies, including Tera Pörtfoy, Pusula Pörtfoy and Hedef Pörtfoy, on the TEFAS electronic fund trading platform.
Late Sunday, the SPK said it was extending the liquidation period given to the banks to six months from three months, “considering the portfolio structures of the funds subject to liquidation and market developments.” It did not elaborate. The assets under management of liquidated funds have been said to exceed TL 890 billion ($18.3 billion).
An investigation into suspected share price manipulation has led to the detention of top executives from several firms and drawn scrutiny to concentrated bets in thinly traded stocks.
Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said Friday the liquidation would not put pressure on Borsa Istanbul Stock Exchange because regulatory changes should prevent any contagion risk. He said authorities would continue to monitor the market closely.
On Saturday, the Justice Ministry said that Pusula Holding Chair Serdar Turhan, Tera Yatırım Holding Chair Emre Tezmen and three fund administrators had been detained as part of the investigation. It said four other suspects had already been arrested and all other suspects identified by the Capital Markets Board had been barred from leaving the country and had their assets frozen.
On Sunday, the ministry said it had identified a transfer of $15 million from Turhan’s account to an account in Switzerland, and another transfer of $25 million from an account belonging to Muhammed Yarız, another executive at Pusula Pörtfoy Yönetim, which is linked with Pusula Holding.
The ministry added that Nihat Kırmızı, the chairman of the Doğa Sigorta firm, was also detained as part of the probe.
15 detained over Katılımevim shares
On Monday, Justice Minister Akin Gürlek said authorities detained 15 people in a probe into transactions involving shares of Katılımevim, a listed Turkish savings financing company that was founded by Pusula Holding’s Turhan, while freezing assets linked to executives at several investment firms.
Prosecutors launched legal proceedings against 25 suspects in the Katılımevim investigation, Gürlek said in a statement. Ten suspects remained at large.
The SPK last week filed criminal complaints against 38 people over alleged manipulation of shares in Katılımevim and two other listed companies, and imposed two-year trading bans on them.
Authorities froze financial and asset transactions involving executives and officials linked to Pusula Finans Holding, Pusula Yatırım Menkul Değerler, Tera Yatırım Menkul Değerler, Tera Portföy Yönetimi, Hedef Holding, Hedef Portföy Yönetimi, Bulls Yatırım Menkul Değerler, Bulls Portföy Yönetimi and Ufuk Yatırım Yönetim ve Gayrimenkul, Gürlek said Monday.
The government has instructed banks, notaries, land registry authorities and financial crimes watchdog MASAK to prevent assets under investigation from being transferred or reduced, Gürlek said.
Authorities also ordered strict monitoring of transactions by board members, authorized signatories, their spouses and close relatives that could reduce their assets, requiring such transactions to be cleared by prosecutors.
The investigation was continuing, Gürlek said.
Tera says working to repay investors
Tera Pörtfoy said Sunday it had repaid some investors and was working to repay others, but that restrictions imposed by authorities were delaying the process.
“Redemption requests submitted during the period when inflows into our funds were being converted into investments surged within a short timeframe, evolving into a collective outflow demand totaling approximately 300 billion Turkish Lira” ($6.15 billion), Tera Pörtfoy said in a statement.
“It should be appreciated that meeting a demand of this magnitude within such a short period would not be easy for any financial institution,” it said, adding that investors had been paid between September 16 and 18 but that further repayments were not possible “due to transaction restrictions and blocks.”
It also said the firm was ready to cooperate with authorities to conclude the process as quickly as possible.
Alphabet’s Google search engine has been slapped with a 403 million euros ($463 million) fine by the European Union after an inquiry into its processing of location data, a watchdog acting on behalf of the bloc said Monday.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DCP) found that Google infringed European Union privacy rules known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) through three of its specific features – “Web & App Activity,” “Location History” and “Location Accuracy” – from 2018 to 2020.
“As a result of Google’s failures, individuals could have been unaware that their location was being used to, for example, influence them with ads or to infer their interests, and could lose control over their personal data,” DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement.
“The retention of users’ location data for longer than necessary aggravated this loss of control.”
It was the fourth-largest fine of the more than 4 billion euros in total levied by the DPC since it became the lead EU regulator for most big U.S. tech firms under the strict 2018 GDPR due to the location of companies’ EU operations in Ireland.
Google was also ordered by the DPC to bring its processing into compliance within six months.
In response, the company said the “case centers around historical policies that have since been updated.”
“From 2019 onward, we’ve significantly evolved our practices and launched robust tools that make managing location data simple,” it added in a statement.
The DPC opened the inquiry in 2020 following complaints from several European consumer rights organizations, including the pan-European consumers’ organisation BEUC, regarding Google’s processing of location data.
The infringements included the lawfulness and fairness of Google’s processing of location data in “Web & App Activity,” an account setting that processes information related to users’ activity on Google services, and “Location History,” which keeps track of users’ location through mobile devices.
Google is subject to three other ongoing statutory inquiries, all of which are at an advanced stage, the DPC added.
A fourth-quarter jet fuel deficit looms for Europe, despite its efforts to secure supplies from faraway countries like South Korea, which is preparing to send its highest volume to Europe in four years this September, according to expert analysis and shipping figures.
The continent has been importing more jet fuel from nations including Nigeria, the United States and Canada since the outbreak of the Iran war over half a year ago, which hit Middle East supplies and cut off around half of Europe’s jet imports.
Europe remains highly exposed to the risk of further supply disruption as Middle Eastern tensions rise.
Consultancy Energy Aspects forecasts that Europe will see a fourth-quarter jet fuel deficit of 510,000 barrels per day, against surpluses of 18,000 bpd in the United States and 419,000 bpd in Asia-Pacific. The third-quarter trend is largely the same.
South Korea in September has become the latest large source of jet fuel shipments to Europe, according to flows data. European imports of the fuel from the Asian nation so far in September stand at 129,000 barrels per day, according to commodities intelligence firm Kpler, the highest since October 2022. LSEG data shows similar volumes.
With the continent expected to remain short of jet fuel, Europe’s imports are set to continue, said James Noel-Beswick, head of commodities at market intelligence firm Sparta Commodities.
Jet fuel is one of the so-called middle distillates, which include diesel and gas oil. European diesel hit a record high this week, firmer than Asia’s diesel markets.
The widening spread between the Asian and European benchmarks is making it more profitable to export barrels into Europe, Noel-Beswick added.
Europe’s jet fuel stocks drop
Imports from South Korea also coincide with low inventories, with stocks held independently in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) oil refining and storage hub hitting their lowest in seven years in the week to Sept. 10.
Asia is a swing supplier of jet fuel to Europe and traders typically turn there when they judge the arbitrage – the relative prices between the two regions – profitable. Average monthly exports last year were 1.5 million barrels, Kpler data showed.
South Korea’s jet fuel output for July hit a seven-year high of almost 13.89 million barrels, while exports reached a 3-1/2-year high, government data showed.
An increase in refinery crude processing rates has contributed to this rise in output, and traders expect crude runs for August to be firmer than July. Provisional government data showed July refining runs at 2.7 million barrels per day, up by 16% from June.
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