UK, Turkey in talks about third railway project

The United Kingdom, under the banner of the government's export credit agency (ECA) UK Export Finance (UKEF), is in negotiations to support financing for its third railway project in Turkey.

A well-placed source told Al-Monitor that there is expectation that the deal will close "soon," without providing more details as the transaction has not yet been finalized.

An ECA is a government department that offers trade finance and other services to facilitate a country’s international exports abroad. The financing goes to countries working on projects that also support British jobs. For example, in March 2022, UKEF announced it would loan Turkey $2.33 billion to build a high-speed electric railway connecting the capital Ankara to the coastal city Izmir. The green loan was structured by the British financial services firm Standard Chartered and the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, UKEF said at the time. The railway is expected to be completed by 2025.

More recently, in July, UKEF underwrote 781 million pounds ($829 million) of financing to support the construction of a 286-kilometer high-speed electric railway in southern Turkey. JP Morgan, ING and BNP Paribas were the lenders. Italian and Austrian export credit agencies reinsured parts of the financing.