OMM Redaksiyası
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative had created new momentum in the region and strengthened Türkiye’s position amid regional turmoil.
Speaking in parliament at the opening of the new legislative year, Erdogan said the initiative had a deterrent effect on Türkiye’s adversaries. He described the effort as part of what he called a “Great Türkiye Consensus”.
“On matters concerning Türkiye’s national interests, politics must be able to reach a full consensus,” Erdogan said, adding that the process was aimed at building that national consensus.
Erdogan cites growth and export records
Turning to the economy, Erdogan said Türkiye had maintained a path of development and growth despite successive wars and crises in the region.
The economy expanded 2.5% year on year in the first half of 2026, he said, while annualised national income exceeded $1.7 trillion. Exports reached a record $280.3 billion on an annual basis in August.
Erdogan said agriculture had recovered quickly after frost and drought the previous year. Tourism revenues totalled $25.7 billion in the first six months of the year, he added, describing the sector’s performance as strong despite regional conflicts.
He also said Türkiye had strengthened its defence industry and become an exporter of defence products. Defence and aerospace exports rose 16.2% to $6.3 billion in the first eight months of the year, according to Erdogan.
He said the country’s external balance was at a sustainable level and forecast that the current account deficit would remain at 2.6% of gross domestic product this year.
Regulator transfers firms to state fund
Addressing an ongoing fund investigation, Erdogan said authorities were resolving an issue affecting a segment of the funding markets in line with capital market rules, while seeking to protect fairness and investors’ rights.
“We will not allow this issue to turn into a threat to our economic security and social peace,” he said.
On Wednesday, Türkiye’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency decided to transfer the management of three investment banks and two factoring companies to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund following developments linked to the investigation.
The measures cover “Tera Investment Bank”, “Destek Investment Bank”, “Hedef Investment Bank”, “Destek Finance Factoring” and “Tera Finance Factoring”, the regulator said. It said its board acted after assessing developments in the process publicly known as the “fund investigation”.
The three banks account for 0.22% of the banking sector’s total assets, while the two factoring companies represent 1.45% of total assets in the factoring sector, according to the regulator.
