Türkiye on Monday urged for closer economic cooperation among Islamic countries, saying stronger production partnerships, investment collaboration, logistics, connectivity and integration are needed to boost their share of global trade.

“We need to increase the share Islamic countries receive from the world economy and trade. This will happen not only through efforts we make individually, but also through what we do together,” Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said.

Yılmaz was speaking at an event held as part of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Development meetings in Ankara.

The event, hosted by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB), brought together chamber representatives from 20 Islamic countries.

Yılmaz said the global economy is facing challenges including geopolitical tensions, rising protectionism, supply chain changes, financing constraints, digitalization and the green transition.

He said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has 57 members, accounts for nearly one-fifth of the world’s population but only 10%-11% of global goods trade, highlighting significant untapped potential.

“This picture needs to change,” he said. “In this context, we need more production partnerships, more cooperation in investments, logistics, connectivity and integration.”

Trade with OIC countries reaches $118B

Yılmaz said Türkiye has played a leading role in advancing economic and commercial cooperation within the OIC.

Türkiye’s economy grew from $238 billion in 2002 to more than $1.6 trillion in 2025, he said. He added that the country’s exports of goods and services reached $396 billion last year and are expected to exceed $400 billion this year.

Türkiye’s trade volume with OIC member countries reached $118 billion last year, while OIC member states have invested $27.3 billion in Türkiye since 2003, he said. Türkiye’s direct investments in OIC countries totaled $15.2 billion over the same period.

Yılmaz said mutual investments should be increased to place trade relations on a stronger foundation.

He also pointed to the work of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the OIC (COMCEC), chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying it has supported economic and commercial cooperation among Islamic countries for more than 40 years.

Under COMCEC, 155 technical working group meetings have been held, 119 research reports have been prepared, and 209 projects have been supported, he said.

Yılmaz added that 38 projects have been implemented in Palestine under the COMCEC Al-Quds Program, while the COMCEC Syria Program will be implemented this year.

Intra-OIC trade target still not met

Yılmaz said Islamic countries have not yet reached their target of increasing intra-OIC trade to 25%.

“In fact, even this 25% is low. We need to target much more,” he noted.

He said the OIC Preferential Trade System is one of the most important tools for reaching that goal, while the long-term objective should be to establish a free trade area among Islamic countries.

Yılmaz also underlined the importance of strengthening the OIC Arbitration Center for the fair and independent resolution of trade and investment disputes.

He said the world is moving from a low-cost production model toward resilient economic structures, making ties with nearby and friendly countries more important.

“In this important transformation process, we must increase our cooperation and turn this environment to our advantage,” he said.

Yılmaz said Türkiye is also working to improve its investment climate and strengthen the Istanbul Financial Center (IFC), particularly through participation and Islamic finance instruments.

He welcomed a memorandum of understanding signed between TOBB and the Federation of Saudi Chambers, saying Türkiye and Saudi Arabia have positive economic and political relations.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and the Federation of Saudi Chambers (FSC) signed Sunday a memorandum of understanding to expand bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

The agreement is aimed at establishing a joint action plan to share institutional expertise, launch sectoral platforms and create a Türkiye-Saudi Arabia Joint Chamber Forum.

The signing came on the sidelines of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Development (ICCD) meetings in Ankara.

TOBB President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu said Islamic countries need to merge their capital reserves with Türkiye’s manufacturing capabilities to create a dominant global economic force.

Hisarcıklıoğlu noted that Türkiye is the region’s top industrial producer with exports reaching $275 billion per year across 12,600 product categories.

He said 60% of Turkish exports go to the EU and the U.S., demonstrating the high quality and price competitiveness of the country’s goods, while over $290 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last 20 years reflects its strong investment climate.

Hisarcıklıoğlu noted that Türkiye is a growing center for innovation with over 740 global firms operating within its techno parks.

He called on business leaders to use the ICCD as a primary mechanism to further economic integration from North Africa to East Asia, and to lobby their governments to eliminate trade barriers, implement structural reforms and promote an environment that facilitates cross-border entrepreneurship.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Andy Burnham, United Kingdom’s prime minister-in-waiting, vowed on Monday to deliver radical change to the nation’s politics, pledging to give away a chunk of his power by handing greater autonomy to local leaders in a “circuit-breaker” for the sclerotic British state.

In a speech at the People’s History ⁠Museum in Manchester, “one of my favorite places on earth,” Burnham offered some detail of his plans if, as expected, he becomes Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade next month.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester also said he would move part of the prime minister’s office from London’s 10 Downing St. to northwest England as part of “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen.”

“Growth cannot be ordered from the top down. Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,” Burnham said in the speech aimed at bringing voters, Labour Party colleagues and financial markets up to speed with his economic vision.

Burnham is the strong favorite to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation last week.

“If councils can’t fix potholes, what chance do they have of bringing forward major regeneration schemes to get growth going?” Burnham said. He set out a 10-year plan to get “good growth in every postcode,” in a country where wealth and power are concentrated in London and the south of England.

He said he would reverse almost two decades of low growth since the 2008 financial crisis through an approach dubbed “Manchesterism” – harnessing private and public money to invest in areas like transport, housing and infrastructure. He also pledged to create new industrial jobs and better educational opportunities, and to reform the U.K.’s inefficient and expensive privatized water and energy utilities.

During the speech in the city where he spent nine years as mayor, Burnham said a new government office in Manchester – dubbed “No. 10 North” – would oversee regional development and become “the nerve center of a rewired Britain,” tasked with equalizing living standards across the country.

Regional mayors would get more power over housing, welfare and education as part of his planned reforms.

Burnham said he would build more social ​housing, give local governments more control over water and other utilities and take on a cost-of-living crisis, ​all ⁠while sticking to the current government’s fiscal rules.

Burnham’s rousing speech was short on specifics about where the government would find more money, and he didn’t take questions from journalists.

In a pointed comment to Starmer, Burnham said he would end “the business as usual” approach to politics which he described as failing to lift the living standards of so many in the country.

He won praise for his role in revitalizing and regenerating Manchester, but he has not served in a U.K. government for almost two decades, and may struggle to replicate “Manchesterism” on a U.K.-wide scale.

‘Fundamental shift’ needed

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a left-leaning think tank, said Burnham is right to focus on “rebalancing Britain.”

“The U.K.’s concentration of power and opportunity in Westminster has held back growth, productivity and living standards for too long,” said IPPR Executive Director Harry Quilter-Pinner. “The real test now is delivery.”

Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, said replicating Burnham’s Manchester approach on a national level would require “a fundamental shift” in the way politics is done in Britain.

“And at the heart of that would be moving from a very traditional, elitist, centralized model of politics toward something that is in many ways far more European, far more based on power-sharing in order to develop long-term policymaking capacity,” he said.

Burnham will be aware that Starmer also announced a 10-year mission – the equivalent of two full terms in government – to transform Britain soon after he was elected in a landslide in July 2024. Starmer is leaving after two years in office marred by missteps and judgment errors that eroded his standing with his party and the public.

Burnham won a special election for a seat in Parliament on June 18 and was sworn in as a lawmaker on June 22, the same day Starmer announced that he will resign as soon as a successor is chosen.

Burnham is so far the only contender in the Labour Party leadership contest. If no one challenges him, he will become prime minister by July 20.

While Burnham is considered more charismatic than the stolid Starmer, he will face many of the same political and economic challenges, including a sluggish economy, tattered public services and a cost-of-living squeeze. He will also be constrained by the platform the center-left Labour Party was elected on in 2024, with its pledges not to increase taxes on working people.

And like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to dramatically increase defense spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States.

The government’s long-awaited defense investment plan – which sparked the resignation of Defense Secretary John Healey on June 11 – is expected to be published before a NATO summit in Türkiye on July 7 and 8. Starmer’s successor will be expected to stick to the commitments in the plan.

“Andy Burnham’s big idea is to shuffle power between politicians,” said opposition Conservative Party Chair Kevin Hollinrake. “Not fix the welfare system. Not cut the taxes strangling working families and British business. Not fund the defense our country desperately needs.”

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Borsa Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) announced Monday that the ban on short selling in the equity market has been lifted after temporary market restrictions introduced due to the Iran war expired.

The bourse said the measures imposed by the Capital Markets Board (SPK) in early March expired on Friday.

In a statement to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP), BIST said it had reinstated the 5:1 order-to-trade ratio (OTR) in the equity market. The change took effect on Monday.

The Capital Markets Board had imposed a ban on short selling in Borsa Istanbul’s equity market on March 1 after Israel and the United States launched attacks on Iran, triggering sharp declines in global equity markets.

The restriction had been extended several times until June 26.

In a note published on Monday, brokerage Iş Investment said lifting the ban was a positive development demonstrating that Turkish authorities were acting in line with recommendations from MSCI, the world’s leading financial index provider.

Last week, index provider MSCI flagged recurring concerns about possible coordinated trading and distorted free-float calculations in Türkiye’s equity market, warning it may launch a consultation on the country’s index treatment if credible progress is absent by November.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled narrowly on Monday to block President Donald Trump from being able to immediately fire Federal Reserve (Fed) Governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations, in what is seen as a blow to his expansive view of presidential powers.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court said that the president cannot remove officials at the independent Fed “for any reason or no reason.”

The U.S. central bank is a non-partisan institution that makes monetary policy for the world’s largest economy, with governors appointed by the president after a Senate confirmation process.

Trump has exerted unprecedented pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates to boost economic activity, and his attempt to fire Cook was the first time a president had tried such a move in the bank’s 111-year history.

U.S. presidents are allowed to fire Fed governors “for cause,” but the court ruled that Trump “failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute.”

Trump has accused Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the central bank’s board of governors, of making false statements on one or more mortgage agreements, allegedly claiming two primary residences, one in Michigan and another in Georgia.

Cook denies the allegations.

During arguments, Cook’s lawyer said she had “at most” made an “inadvertent mistake” on her loan documents.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

South Korea on Monday unveiled a broad industrial strategy focused on semiconductors and artificial intelligence, with President Lee Jae Myung announcing more than $576 billion in chip investment aimed at cementing global leadership and rebalancing growth.

The plan, anchored ⁠by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, marks Lee’s boldest push yet to align South Korea’s AI and chip ambitions with his pledge to narrow regional disparities and revive economies beyond the Seoul metropolitan area.

Flanked by the chiefs of the world’s two biggest memory chipmakers, Lee cast the ​initiative as a “great leap forward,” centered on the “triple axis” of semiconductors, physical AI and data centers.

“We must secure ​the ⁠core elements of AI faster than any other country,” the president said in a televised address.

Samsung and SK Hynix will invest 800 trillion won ($518.30 billion) to build two new chip fabrication sites each in South Korea’s southwest region, industry minister Kim Jung-kwan said.

Lee said the country’s southwestern city of Gwangju and South Jeolla province will also invest 5 trillion-20 trillion won in the projects. A further 81 trillion won is expected for a chip packaging cluster in the Chungcheong area near Seoul.

“To meet the rapidly increasing demand for semiconductors, we need to quickly complete the production hubs that are currently under construction,” Lee said.

“At the same time, we must secure overwhelming production capacity in advance through large-scale new investments, including in the southwestern region. Existing sites centered around Yongin and Pyeongtaek have already reached their limits.”

Lee said the southwest will host major chip production clusters, drawing on abundant, underused power.

Industry experts say diversifying chip investment beyond Seoul could ease infrastructure bottlenecks, but warn that building cutting-edge fabs requires vast electricity and water, advanced logistics, deep supplier networks and highly skilled labor – elements that may not ⁠scale ⁠quickly enough in a new region to meet surging AI demand.

“To execute something of this magnitude properly requires an extraordinary amount of deliberation. I am sure there has been extensive internal review, but from the outside, it still appears to be moving too fast,” said Lee Jong-ho, a professor at Seoul National University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“It would be ideal if demand remained strong for the next 20 or 30 years, but no one can know that with certainty…If demand were to decline, the consequences would be severe.”

HBM chips give pole position in AI race

South Korea is emerging as a major winner from the surge in global AI investment, driven by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s commanding position in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips essential to advanced AI processors.

Their grip on HBM supply has made them central to the global push to develop more powerful AI systems. Both companies operate large ⁠semiconductor hubs in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Industry Minister Kim also said the country will double dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) output within five years by bringing forward construction of fabs in the Seoul metropolitan area to the mid-2030s.

DRAM is a type of memory that is used to power electronics such as laptops and smartphones and HBM is produced by stacking multiple layers of DRAM.

Samsung ​Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee said at the event the company had selected Gwangju as a site for its new chip cluster, while SK Hynix’s Chairman ​Chey Tae-won said the firm needed more time to finalize a site and secure infrastructure in the southwestern region.

“It took us nine years for us to create a cluster in Yongin. Also, a chip factory requires massive land, power, water and talent,” Chey said.

Shares of Samsung and ⁠SK Hynix closed down ‌4.86% and 1.68%, respectively, ‌on Monday with some analysts warning that the surge in investments could lead to a supply glut.

Lee defends plan

Opposition politicians have sharply criticized Lee’s southwest chip hub, questioning whether the proposal is politically ‌motivated given that 85% of voters in the region backed Lee in last year’s presidential election.

The announcement comes as Lee’s approval rating has slid for six weeks to 46.5%, according to pollster Realmeter.

The ​president defended the proposed southwest chip hub in ⁠a series of X posts over the weekend, rejecting criticism that it favors a liberal stronghold.

In addition to chips, ⁠science minister Bae Kyung-hoon said South Korea is aiming to invest 550 trillion won in AI data centers by 2029 and more than 1,000 trillion won ⁠by 2035, while decentralizing infrastructure to support ​regional growth beyond the capital.

Seoul also plans a robotics and parts cluster in Saemangeum on the west coast, where Hyundai Motor has invested, to rival humanoid robotics advances in countries including China.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.