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Deutsche Bank and Akbank among banks to fund Gebze-Izmir motorway

A final financing agreement for Turkey's 421km Gebze-Izmir motorway project will be signed by nine banks, eight of which will be Turkish, in April. The agreement will be for around US$4.73 billion of the deal likely to cost in total more than $6 billion and which is the country’s largest public-private partnership project. The banks are Deutsche Bank and Turkish banks Akbank, Garanti Bankasi, Finansbank, Is Bankasi, Halkbank, Ziraat Bankasi, Yapi Kredi and Vakfbank. Work has been going on since 2010 for the
March 19, 2015 Read time: 3 mins
RSSA final financing agreement for Turkey's 421km Gebze-Izmir motorway project will be signed by nine banks, eight of which will be Turkish, in April.

The agreement will be for around US$4.73 billion of the deal likely to cost in total more than $6 billion and which is the country’s largest public-private partnership project. The banks are 3321 Deutsche Bank and Turkish banks 1476 Akbank, Garanti Bankasi, Finansbank, Is Bankasi, Halkbank, Ziraat Bankasi, Yapi Kredi and Vakfbank.

Work has been going on since 2010 for the Trans-European Standard highway, scheduled to be finished in 2018. It will run from the town of Gebze on the north shore of Izmit Bay, part of the Sea of Marmara which is also part of the connecting waterway between the Black Sea and the Agean Sea.

Almost immediately the highway will run south and across a new 3.3km suspension bridge spanning the bay – essentially a project within the project, called the Izmit Bay Crossing Project. From there it runs due south to Izmir, a major port and business centre on Turkey’s Agean coast.

Most of the highway will be six lanes and the project includes more than 40km of access roads. It should shorten the distance between Gebze and Ismir by more than 140km, mainly because it eliminates the trek around the bay to regain the road directly to Izmir. The project’s national importance comes not from connecting Gebze to Izmir. Rather that traffic from Turkey’s commercial capital Istanbul to the west, on the Bosphorous Straits, has had to pass through Gebze and around the bay to get to Izmir.

The build-operate-transfer contract is for 22 years and four months, including seven years of construction time and will cost an estimated US$6 billion. Turkey’s General Directorate of Highways (JGM), a government-owned company, is the project owner and will guarantee an annual income for the operator or around $700 million. At the end of the contract, the asset will be turned over to the 3337 KGM.

Project implementation contractor Otoyol was selected in 2009 and work has been underway since 2010. Otoyol is a consortium of five Turkish companies; 3338 Nurol (18.50%), 7135 Özaltin (15.75%), 3340 Makyol (18.50%), 4149 Yüksel (15.75%) and Gocay (15.75%) and Italian construction company 1324 Astaldi (15.75%).

The first phase of the multi-phase highway project is the $2.3 billion 53km Gebze-Orhangazi motorway section, an engineering-procurement-construction contract. It includes the $1.1 billion suspension bridge subcontracted to the consortium IIS-4081 ITOCHU.

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