(MENAFN- AzerNews) By News Center
On May 28, which was described as the "Election of the Century",
Turkiye preferred the candidate of the People's Alliance, Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdogan, who left his mark on Turkish and world
politics in the last 20 years as Prime Minister and President, won
the Presidential Election with a great victory in return for his
services. Erdogan, who made Turkiye the strongest country in the
region in energy, transportation, trade, agriculture, health,
defense, tourism, education and social services, received a
five-year mandate from the nation for the Century of Turkiye. The
projects signed between 2002-2022 have the infrastructure to
prepare Turkiye for the new century. Turkiye has a five-year period
of stability that will increase added value with more
investments.
Thanks to the successful projects produced in the defense
industry and developed within the scope of the national technology
move, Turkey got rid of foreign dependency. With projects such as
National Combat Plane, Hurjet, Bayraktar TB3, TCG Anadolu, Turkiye
has become the country that is admired in the world. Turkiye's
61-year-old domestic automobile dream has come true with the innate
electric Togg developed with domestic and national resources.
Country's wealth increased with the infrastructure
revolution
Mega projects such as Osmangazi Bridge, Yavuz Sultan Selim,
Eurasia Tunnel and Marmaray, which are laid between East and West,
came to life as the most concrete examples of the infrastructure
revolution that took place in Turkiye. Investments, which
facilitate both access to the West and access from the Caucato
Central Asia, brought Turkiye rapidly towards its goal of creating
a middle line outside of international corridors. Investments
realized in all areas such as railways, highways, ports, tunnels,
air transportation, technology infrastructure, among the 2023
targets, play an important role in many areas from trade to
tourism, from country welfare to increasing exports in the Century
of Turkiye.
Export target in defense $6bn
The speed of the products that Turkiye put forward on the
defense industry cannot be kept up. Almost every week, there is a
new development that will change the balance at sea, in the air and
on land. The National Combat Aircraft and Hurjet aircraft, which
were implemented by TAI under the leadership of the defense
industry, left the hangar and successfully completed the taxi tests
on the runway on March 18. Work on the Kızılelma project, Turkiye's
first unmanned fighter aircraft, continues at full throttle. The
world's first armed unmanned aerial vehicle (SİHA) ship and
Turkiye's largest military ship, TCG Anadolu, on which Turkey's
first unmanned warplane Kızılelma will land, has also entered the
inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces. Thus, Türkiye became one of
the 12 countries in the world with ships of this scale. Defense and
aerospace exports exceeded $4bn in 2022, reaching the highest level
in history. The defense industry, which continues its rise with
more than 750 ongoing projects, has an export target of $6bn for
2023.
Bridges, Viaducts, Tunnels and routes are
shortened
While the products developed one after the other in the field of
defense industry give upper hand for Turkiye in the global arena,
there were a hundred years of initiatives in the transportation
sector. In recent years, Turkiye has implemented multiple bridges
and tunnels connecting Asia and Europe. Canakkale Bridge, which
reduces the passage of the Bosphoto 6 minutes, is among the few
projects in the world, while the Eurasia Tunnel, the world's first
two-storey highway tunnel, was opened to traffic in 2016, 8 months
ahead of schedule. Osmangazi Bridge, which reduces the distance
between Istanbul and Izmir to three hours, has saved Turkiye
TRY6.6bn ($320m) since the day it was opened. As of 2007, the
routes started to be redrawn with the growing Mersin International
Port. Turkiye's second longest road tunnel, the Ovit Tunnel, which
was included in the 1880 Development Plan of the Ottoman Empire,
was also put into service in 2018.
City hospitals, the proud of Turkiye
City hospitals, which President ErdoGan calls“my dream”, are
healing citizens all over the country. Kocaeli City Hospital, with
a total bed capacity of 1,218, was put into service on April 15
with a ceremony attended by Erdogan. Ankara Etlik City Hospital
also provides services with 4,050 beds. With a total bed capacity
of 29,348, 20 city hospitals, the construction of which has been
completed, become an ointment for the wounds of the patients. Aydın
City Hospital, which was included in the 2020 investment program of
the Ministry of Health in order to provide more qualified health
services, and the construction of which started in the central
district of Efeler in November 2021, is counting the days to enter
service. The Ministry of Health will serve with a total of 33 city
hospitals upon the completion of the ongoing investments. Thus, the
bed capacity will exceed 43 thousand.
Turkiye is the 8th in the world in high speed train
transportation
Having invested a total of TRY347bn ($17bn) in railways in 20
years, Turkiye ranked eighth in the world and sixth in Europe in
high-speed train transportation. After Ankara-Eskişehir, Turkiye's
first high-speed train opened in 2009, Ankara-Konya in 2011,
Konya-Eskişehir in 2013 and Ankara-Istanbul and Konya-Istanbul
lines in 2014 were opened. In addition to this transportation
network, the Ankara-Sivas High Speed Train Line was recently put
into operation. The 3.3-kilometer-long AKM-Gar-Kızılay Metro Line,
built by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure in Ankara,
was inaugurated on April 12. Thanks to the AKM-Gar-Kızılay Metro
Line, direct metro transportation from Keçioren to Kızılay was
provided. Again, the 6.2-kilometer Başakşehir-Pine and Sakura City
Hospital-Kayaşehir Metro Line, built to strengthen Istanbul's
transportation infrastructure, was put into service on April 8 with
a ceremony attended by President Erdogan.
Europe's most advanced flight club
The Istanbul Airport project, which changed the aviation rules
in the world with its location at the intersection of Asia and
Europe, continues to carry passengers to 333 locations in the
world, with the distinction of being the 1st airport in Europe with
a timely departure since 2018. Istanbul Airport, which further
strengthens Turkiye's strategic position as one of the largest
airports in the world, draws attention with its innovative and
powerful information infrastructure that is compatible with smart
technologies. Serving its passengers with a 1,400,000 square meter
main terminal building under a single roof, Istanbul Airport
currently has an annual passenger capacity of 90 million. Istanbul
Airport has hosted more than 170 million passengers in total in the
4 years since it was put into service.
Eurasia tunnel contributed $1.2bn
Projects that have been implemented on the transportation side
in recent years continue to make Turkiye's name known in the world.
The Eurasia Tunnel is one of these projects. The project, which
connects the European and Asian sides of Istanbul with a road
tunnel that passes under the sea for the first time, is located on
a route of 14.6 kilometers in total, with a 5 kilometer long
two-storey tunnel and connection roads passing under the seabed.
With the project, the route of 14.6 kilometers between Kazlıceshme
on the European side and Goztepe on the Anatolian side, where
vehicle traffic is heavy, decreased from 100 minutes to 15 minutes.
As of February 2023, the Eurasia Tunnel, which was used by a total
of 100 million vehicles, contributed $1.2bn to the country's
economy in 6 years and covered its investment costs.
The highway network has grown 3 times
Land transportation, which is of great importance in the
development and welfare, constitutes an economic activity in
itself. Turkiye uses 60 percent of its transportation and
communication investments of over TRY1.7tr ($0.082bn) for road
works. Between 2003 and 2022, TRY995.9bn ($47.9bn) were invested
for highways. In the last 20 years, the length of divided roads on
the highways has increased from 6,100 kilometers to over 28,790
kilometers. The length of the highway increased from 1,714
kilometers to 3,633 kilometers, and the tunnel length increased
from 50 kilometers to 663 kilometers.