Turkey opposition vows to build new ‘mega-city’ in Anatolia | ACTURCA
▻http://acturca.info/2015/05/22/turkey-opposition-vows-to-build-new-mega-city-in-anatolia
Turkey’s main opposition party on Thursday unveiled a plan to build a new mega-city in the centre of the country, in a bid to outflank the ambitious infrastructure projects of the ruling party ahead of elections.
Seeking not to be outdone by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s self-proclaimed « crazy projects », the Republican People’s Party (CHP) said the new city would create 2.2 million new jobs over the next two decades.
« The project would give a great push to the Turkish economy and would make our country an economic actor in the region that cannot be ignored, » CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in Istanbul.
He said the new city would eventually have three million inhabitants and could start working as soon as 2020.
At a crossroads between Europe and Asia, the city would be the « project of the century », Kilicdaroglu said.
In order to realise the project, $160 billion (145 billion euros) in foreign and Turkish investments would be needed over the next 20 years, he added.
Kilicdaroglu did not give the precise location of the new city but said it would be at the geographical heart of Turkey which would put it in Anatolia east of Ankara.