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Although Turkey’s long-awaited standby agreement with the IMF has yet to be signed, another leading international financial institution has begun to operate in Turkey and is providing a welcome source of additional financing. In mid-May the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced that it was lending €45 million to help finance the construction of the largest windfarm in the country.
The project is the first to be signed since Turkey became an EBRD country of operations in September 2008 and is the initial deal in a series of investments that are set to total €450 million by the end of 2010. As the second-largest economy within the EBRD’s sphere of operations, Turkey will benefit from investments in a number of key areas – micro- and small and medium-sized enterprises, privatization, agribusiness, municipal services and energy and energy efficiency.
The EBRD’s groundbreaking loan has been granted to developer Rotor Elektrik, which is part of Zorlu Holding, a leading Turkish industrial conglomerate. Rotor is developing a 135MW onshore windfarm in Osmaniye in southern Turkey that should be up and running by the end of this year and will give a big boost to Turkey’s windpower industry which to date has just 500MW of installed capacity.