Huge Gulf funds are eyeing possible investment opportunities in Turkey, from agriculture to tourism and industry. The funds, including those from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, plan to invest around $8 billion (TL 109.07 billion) in the country this year.
The latest visit from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the UAE, which was dubbed the start of a new period in bilateral relations, further stimulated the investment opportunities regarding Turkey.
The pre-deals for investments to be made in companies operating in sectors such as agriculture, defense and industrial production, technology, petrochemicals, transportation and infrastructure, tourism and the health sector, have already been sealed.
While northwestern Kocaeli, Bursa, Yalova and Istanbul provinces came to the fore for industrial investments, southern Antalya and the central Konya and Aksaray provinces are set to take the significant share of the agricultural investments.
The investments regarding the tourism industry will mostly focus on western Muğla and Izmir provinces, and the provinces of Kocaeli and Izmir also separately come to the fore with petrochemical investments.
Recalling that Middle Eastern funds have invested $12 billion in the real economy in the last two years, Middle East Economic Platform head Erdin Özel said that they are now planning an investment of $8 billion in total for this year.