Economy
Türkiye raises 2027 arms procurement budget by nearly 230%
Türkiye has increased its budget allocation for the procurement of weapons, ammunition, weapons systems and other defense equipment by 229% for 2027, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said on Wednesday.
Yılmaz said total allocations for defense and security would reach TL 3.45 trillion ($69.64 billion), including resources earmarked for the Defense Industry Support Fund.
The remarks came as he presented the government’s 2027 budget proposal to Parliament’s Planning and Budget Commission.
Yılmaz said total allocations for defense and security account for 12.7% of the central government budget, he said.
Government spending for 2027 is projected at TL 27.2 trillion and revenue at about TL 23.4 trillion. Revenue is expected to rise 37.5% from the previous year to TL 23.4 trillion, and tax revenue 36.5% to TL 19.9 trillion.
Yılmaz called it a “budget of resilience, prosperity and transformation” meant to strengthen the economy against external shocks.
He said price stability and sustainably stronger macroeconomic balances are preconditions for lasting prosperity, and that supporting disinflation is one of the budget’s main pillars.
Yilmaz said the government aims to bring consumer price inflation down to 21% in 2027.
Annual inflation fell below 30% in September and is forecast to end this year at 28.4%.
Yilmaz said the economy has kept its resilience and has grown for 24 consecutive quarters. He said Türkiye’s growth of 5.2% is above the world average.
The government aims to raise potential growth by 0.5 percentage points through productivity-focused policies, and expects growth of 4.2% in 2027 and 4.6% in 2028, reaching 5% by the end of the Medium-Term Program (MTP) period.
National income is expected to exceed $1.8 trillion in 2026, with income per person above $20,000, Yılmaz said. The aim is to pass $2 trillion during the MTP period.
The government aims to create an average of 711,000 additional jobs a year through 2029, with the goal of bringing unemployment down to single digits, according to Yılmaz.
Unemployment is forecast to fall to 8% next year from a projected 8.1% in 2026.
Yılmaz said goods exports are targeted to reach $292 billion in 2027, and the current account deficit is expected to be 1.9% of national income, below its historical average. He added that growth in global trade volume is forecast to slow in 2028-2029.
The government aims to increase housing supply through social housing and rental social housing projects, Yılmaz noted.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that payments to investors in funds being liquidated will pick up speed once a bill before Parliament takes effect.
Erdoğan said the government’s response will also include holding those who profited unjustly to account and putting measures in place to prevent a similar crisis.
He was speaking at a group meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Parliament.
The scandal broke just over a month ago, when several investment funds said they were unable to satisfy redemption demands, prompting prosecutors to open an investigation into allegations of widespread market manipulation.
Regulators placed seven firms managing 131 funds into liquidation, affecting nearly half a million individual investors. The Justice Ministry says more than 80 people have been arrested.
Separately, Turkish police on Wednesday detained 26 people, among them an ex-finance ministry bureaucrat and investment fund executives, as part of the investigation.
Erdoğan described the government’s approach as three stages.
He said the Fund Coordination Board and the government’s economic team meet regularly and announce their decisions to the public transparently.
“After the bill on our parliament’s agenda comes into force, the payment process will speed up a bit more,” he said.
Liquidation is split into ordinary and extraordinary procedures. Ordinary applies to firms whose finances are relatively manageable.
Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said this week that TL 40.8 billion has been paid to 45,747 accounts under ordinary liquidation. Interim payments of up to TL 1 million for the remaining funds depend on the bill.
‘Baseless rumors and ravings’
The second stage, Erdoğan said, is to hold to account in court those who made unjust and excessive gains through manipulation, using methods outside law and morality and, at times, as part of an organization. He said chief prosecutors are acting on the evidence and on confessions.
Prosecutors on Wednesday said they had issued a warrant for 31 people, of whom 26 had been detained, with police looking for the other five.
Among those still sought was Nusret Altınbaş, owner of Altınbaş Holding, a large privately-held Turkish conglomerate. His brother is already in custody and family assets have been frozen, Anadolu Agency (AA) said.
It was not immediately clear on what charges Wednesday’s suspects were detained, but the list includes 16 executives and staff who worked for portfolio management firms already named in the scandal: Atlas, Pardus, Hedef, Tera and A1.
Erdoğan said prosecutors were working to hold “those who obtained unfair and exorbitant profits through manipulation, using illegal and unethical methods … accountable before the law.”
And he urged citizens to be wary of attempts to “manipulate public perception through the media and social media,” urging them to avoid “baseless rumors and ravings of those who are neck-deep in corruption.”
Return of excessive gains
Şimşek said authorities have identified people who profited from market-disrupting activity and stressed that anyone who did not voluntarily return excessive gains would face legal proceedings.
“First, those who made gains of TL 10 million or more will be approached. If there is no voluntary return, the justice ministry will initiate the relevant legal procedures,” he said.
Turkish law has an “effective remorse” mechanism under which anyone accused of market-manipulation offences can obtain immunity or a reduced sentence by paying back at least twice the profit obtained from wrongdoing.
If they repay before a criminal investigation has started, no sentence is imposed, but if it is during the investigation, their sentence is reduced by half, or by a third if payment happens during the trial stage.
Preventing repeat
Erdoğan said the third stage covers the steps needed to avoid facing a similar problem again.
He said that, drawing on a comprehensive report to be prepared by the State Supervisory Council (DDK) and other work under his instructions, “every kind of step” will be taken on institutional, individual and legislative matters.
He said the government takes the matter very seriously, since it affects not only the more than 455,000 investors in the liquidated funds but also many more people, including their families. “We are going after the matter without compromise,” he said.
The economic links between Germany and Russia have weakened significantly since the start of the war in Ukraine, with trade volume dropping sharply and passenger traffic also hit, according to fresh German government data.
Trade has almost ground to a halt, with German imports from Russia falling by 96.4% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Federal Statistical Office reported on Wednesday.
The value of imports fell to just 500 million euros ($561 million) from 15 billion euros, largely due to the loss of Russian oil and gas supplies. Remaining imports consisted mainly of food and animal feed, metals and chemical products.
German exports to Russia also fell sharply, with companies shipping goods worth 3.4 billion euros in the first six months of 2026, around a quarter of the value recorded in the same period in 2021.
Pharmaceutical products accounted for 42.4% of exports, while machinery, food and animal feed continued to be exported in smaller quantities, the German statisticians said.
The number of Russian-controlled companies operating in Germany fell from 229 in 2021 to just 76 in 2024, according to the statistical office.
These companies generated revenue of 8.4 billion euros in 2024, down from 25.4 billion euros three years earlier. They accounted for just 0.2% of all foreign-controlled companies in Germany.
The number of German companies operating in Russia also declined significantly.
According to Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, 290 German companies were still active in Russia in 2024, generating annual revenue of around 13 billion euros. That compared with 481 companies and 38 billion euros in revenue in 2021.
Passenger traffic between Germany and Russia has also collapsed following the suspension of direct flights under EU sanctions.
Around 39,900 passengers travelling to Russia were recorded at German airports in the first half of 2026, compared with approximately 1 million in the first half of 2019.
Those still travelling to Russia had to take connecting flights through third countries such as Türkiye.
Migration from Russia to Germany has also declined since the start of the war.
In the first half of 2026, around 3,800 Russian citizens moved to Germany, while approximately 4,400 left the country.
By contrast, in 2022, when the war began, arrivals significantly outnumbered departures, with 12,700 Russian citizens moving to Germany and 3,400 leaving.
The number of Russian students enrolled at German universities has also fallen sharply, nearly halving from its 2014 peak to around 1,700.
NATO allies Canada and Türkiye are expected to sign a joint declaration aimed at deepening bilateral cooperation in four areas, including defense and energy, during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit later this week, a person briefed on the matter said.
The declaration is also expected to encompass the economy, looking to advance bilateral free trade talks, while boosting social and diplomatic ties. The countries would establish committees in all of the areas to draft action plans, the person said.
Carney will be the first Canadian prime minister to make a dedicated bilateral visit to Türkiye. He is set to meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Thursday and then with Turkish business leaders in Istanbul on Friday.
The visit is part of Carney’s efforts to reduce trade dependence on the United States and strengthen partnerships with regional powers amid a damaging trade war with Washington and an increasingly adversarial relationship with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned Canada’s sovereignty.
At a Canadian government briefing on Tuesday, officials declined to confirm what specific declarations, agreements or deals might be signed during the trip.
Carney will meet Erdogan “to advance cooperation in trade and investment, energy, defense and security and people-to-people ties,” said a Canadian government official.
The meetings with Turkish companies on Friday are meant “to promote the strengthening of bilateral trade and investment and to foster new opportunities for commercial collaboration,” the official said, adding that Ottawa is most interested in Türkiye’s aerospace, defense, energy, mining, high-tech and agriculture sectors.
Talks may include nuclear power, LNG
Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told the Kanal 7 broadcaster on Sunday that energy, namely nuclear power, would be among the top agenda items during Carney’s visit.
Ankara anticipates that energy discussions will also include potential purchases by Türkiye of liquefied natural gas from Canada as well as critical minerals, according to the person briefed on the matter. A working group is expected to be created to study the feasibility of a bid by Canada’s CANDU to build a planned nuclear plant on Türkiye’s Black Sea coast.
Türkiye has held talks with Canadian engineering firm AtkinsRealis ATRL.TO, which owns CANDU, as well as South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation and China’s State Power Investment Corporation, about potentially building its planned second and third nuclear power plants. Russia’s Rosatom is building its first.
The discussions on the defense sector are expected to focus on drones and naval cooperation. In 2024, to help thaw bilateral ties, Canada removed weapons-export controls on Türkiye, including on optical technology used in drones that Türkiye exports to dozens of nations.
Carney will be accompanied on the trip by his Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Energy Minister Tim Hodgson.
He will meet executives from defense companies and firms with energy businesses, including Çalık Holding and Sabancı Holding, according to two other people familiar with the plans.
Turkish defense analysts have said Trump’s policies toward Canada had created opportunities for closer cooperation in ammunition production, drones and naval systems, but cautioned that major agreements were unlikely to materialize in the short term.
The European Union launched a probe into online travel agent Booking.com on Wednesday to determine whether it breached the bloc’s digital rules in areas including fake listings and phishing scams.
The EU fears Booking.com has underestimated the impact of fraud and unlicensed accommodation, and is not sufficiently protecting users’ data from being misused for scams.
The probe is the first into Booking.com under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a mammoth online content law that covers a wide array of platforms including social media and digital marketplaces.
“Europeans should be able to book their holidays without fear of being scammed,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
The EU said it was also looking into whether the Netherlands-based firm breached rules “because it did not clearly label as ads those listings whose providers paid for a higher ranking in search results shown to users.”
The DSA “sets clear responsibilities” and “we must ensure that the leading booking platform in Europe takes those responsibilities seriously,” Virkkunen added.
Booking.com said that it was “cooperating fully” and that “security, trust and the protection of personal information are top priorities.”
“We remain committed to working with relevant governments, regulators, law enforcement and industry partners to combat cybercrime and online fraud and protect travellers and partners,” it added.
Booking.com is among over 20 very large online platforms that must comply with the DSA’s stricter rules or risk fines that could go as high as 6% of their global turnover, or even a ban for serious and repeated breaches.
There is no legal deadline for the completion of the probe, but the targeted company can offer commitments to address the European Commission’s concerns.
Suspicions over data
A senior EU official was critical of Booking.com and its risk assessment efforts since 2023.
“We feel that what they have done is absolutely substandard,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The commission – the EU’s digital watchdog ª said it would assess whether the online platform “properly identified” risks linked to the spread of illegal content such as non-existent properties and fraudsters portraying themselves as the owner of a property and putting it up for rent.
In some cases, customers discover on arrival that the property they thought they had booked does not exist, or more often, photographs or property descriptions do not accurately reflect reality.
The EU will also investigate whether Booking.com is doing enough to address the risks that phishing scams pose to European consumers.
Phishing is broadly defined as the practice of tricking people into sharing sensitive information through deceptive messages.
The EU said it would look at how reservation and guest data is shared with accommodation providers, and whether Booking.com has put in place “sufficient safeguards to prevent data from being misused”.
“We suspect that Booking is not sufficiently protecting the data of … private users and business users, and (this) makes the system vulnerable for this kind of phishing,” the senior official said.
Meta is also under investigation over potentially fraudulent advertising on its platforms in a probe that began in 2024.
Türkiye, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia signed a quadrilateral defense cooperation agreement in Doha on Wednesday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.
The “Badr Memorandum of Understanding” is aimed at boosting defense cooperation and strengthening the four countries’ defensive capabilities. It will also support military exercises and training and cooperation on research and development (R&D) and contribute to joint efforts to improve their defense industries, the ministry said.
“The agreement holds substantial economic importance,” it said. “By leveraging the unique military production capabilities of each country, the initiative will facilitate cooperation and integration, enhance defense industrial capacities, and enable the fulfillment of the needs of allied and friendly nations.”
Türkiye, which has NATO’s second-largest army and a robust defense industry, has been helping Gulf nations, including Qatar, where it has a military base, bolster their defenses amid the Iran war.
In August, it signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with nuclear-armed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, under which an attack on one party constitutes an attack on all. Ankara also has close ties with Indonesia, notably in the defense industry.
Türkiye says that the Mecca partnership is meant to strengthen collective deterrence, enhance joint capabilities in the defense sector and safeguard security and stability in the region.
The Badr accord will strengthen ties between the countries’ defense industries and bolster collaboration to promote security and achieve shared objectives, the Defense Ministry said.
Wednesday’s agreement builds on existing bilateral relationships and could create new areas of cooperation. It could also help bring together the countries’ industrial capabilities in projects already underway.
Areas of concrete cooperation include joint R&D projects, joint production of certain components of defense products, training of technical personnel, sharing of engineering experience, adapting jointly developed products to each side’s needs and marketing them internationally.
Existing ties
Cooperation between Türkiye and Qatar has recently turned toward joint investment and production models. Bayraktar TB2 armed drones, armored vehicles and assault boats have entered Qatar’s armed forces inventory.
Barzan Holding, owned by Qatar’s Defense Ministry, has signed several agreements with Turkish firms including Aselsan, STM and MKE. Through BARQ, a company set up in Qatar by Aselsan and Barzan, assembly, production and calibration of remote-controlled weapon systems (SARP) and electro-optical devices have begun in Qatar.
In Pakistan, a major example is the PN Milgem (Babur-class) corvette project, led by the Turkish contractor ASFAT. Of the four corvettes, the first two were built in Istanbul and the other two at Karachi Shipyard in Pakistan.
The project modernized the yard’s production infrastructure and passed shipbuilding and outfitting skills to the local workforce.
With Indonesia, recent concrete steps include the sale of the Kaan fighter jet, the joint development of the Kaplan MT medium tank and an armored personnel carrier, and the supply and co-production of the Atmaca anti-ship missile.
Under an intergovernmental agreement between the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) and Indonesia’s Defense Ministry, the Kaplan MT was co-designed by Türkiye’s FNSS and Indonesia’s PT Pindad.
Prototypes and the first production tanks were delivered to Indonesian users, and production continues in Indonesia at PT Pindad under a technology transfer arrangement.
Türkiye’s defense exports
The agreement comes as Türkiye’s defense exports reach record levels.
According to figures from the Defense and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association (SSI), Türkiye’s defense and aerospace sector exported about $54 billion between 2012 and 2026, including the first nine months of this year.
More than $30 billion of that was in 2023-2026, meaning the last four years account for over 55% of the total for the past 14 years.
Exports rose 48% in 2025 to a record of more than $10 billion, and exports over the last 12 months topped $11 billion for the first time.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says Türkiye raised its arms exports by 122% over the past five years, making it the world’s 11th-largest arms supplier. About 56% of Türkiye’s defense and aerospace exports go to NATO allies, the report said.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms drew notable investor interest on Wednesday, being able to fully subscribe to its initial public offering (IPO) within two hours of opening, setting the stage for what is likely to be India’s largest-ever listing.
Jio Platforms, which houses the country’s biggest wireless operator and is the digital services arm of Ambani’s Reliance Industries, is looking to raise up to $3.2 billion in India’s most anticipated IPO this year.
Bids placed by investors exceeded the 197.5 million shares on offer within 100 minutes of opening, according to BSE stock exchange data, with local media calling it the “fastest-ever subscribed IPO” in India.
Most analysts expect gains when the stock debuts in Mumbai next week – likely Oct. 28 – despite the weak performance of Indian equities this year.
Launched a decade ago, Jio’s wireless service disrupted the market with steep discounts that helped it rapidly win customers from rival telecom firms Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.
The company’s 533 million subscribers provide a “strong foundation for future growth,” analysts at financial services firm Motilal Oswal said in a note.
But they also cautioned that “monetisation of newer digital services” still needs to be “demonstrated at scale.”
While the massive IPO is seven years in the making, it comes at a challenging time for Reliance – India’s most valuable listed company, which still depends heavily on its traditional oil business to make money.
U.S. ties
Reliance’s refining empire drew the anger of the U.S. last year after White House adviser Peter Navarro accused Indian tycoons of profiting off the Ukraine war by buying discounted Russian crude.
While Navarro did not identify a specific businessperson, it was widely seen as a swipe at Ambani, who appeared this year to offer an olive branch by supporting the construction of America’s first major new oil refinery in half a century.
Ambani was set to meet U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday in the western city of Jamnagar – where Reliance’s massive refinery complex is located – as Washington seeks to boost energy cooperation with India.
Experts say Jio is key to Reliance’s strategy to evolve beyond its oil business and the touchstone of its future tech ambitions.
While Jio makes most of its money from telecoms, it has expanded into areas including artificial intelligence.
Reports also said it was considering a low-orbit satellite constellation to provide internet services from space, a venture that would put it in competition with Musk’s Starlink, which has been trying for years to launch in India.
Musk accused unnamed Indian “oligarchs” this month of preventing Starlink’s rollout in the country, and referred to the Reliance boss as “Prime Minister Ambani” and the “real boss of India.”
Reliance responded by noting that it had never “feared competition” and welcomed offerings from rivals in satellite communications, including Starlink.
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