Turkey’s main opposition vows to build new mega city

ISTANBUL

Although the exact location of the proposed new city has yet to be revealed, the CHP’s promotional film indicates an area on the crossroads of Turkey’s central, eastern and southeastern regions, somewhere near the province of Malatya.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has announced its much-trumpeted “project of the century,” which will be focused on building an entirely new city named “Center Turkey” with an investment of $200 billion.Speaking at an Istanbul ceremony to introduce the project to create a “logistics and production hub” on May 21, CHP chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said the ambitious plans would create 2.2 million jobs.“Our geographic location lets us reach 1.5 billion people in 58 countries in 4.5 hours. This project aims to use this unique advantage by building a mega city in Anatolia, which will go beyond being a logistics hub,” Kılıçdaroğlu added.Although the exact location of the proposed new city has yet to be revealed, the CHP’s promotional film indicates an area on the crossroads of Turkey’s central, eastern and southeastern regions, somewhere near the province of Malatya.The “mega city,” with a population of 3,000,000, will be completed by 2035 with $40 billion public investment for infrastructure and $160 billion private investment for superstructure. Powered by renewable energy and designed as a smart city, it will host production plants, logistics and trade facilities, R&D centers, technoparks, cultural institutions and a free trade zone.According to the CHP, the new city will create 2.2 million jobs and $147 billion additional revenue every year by 2035. If elected as the government in the June 7 general elections, the party vows to increase Turkey’s national income to $2.7 trillion by 2035, 5.5 percent of which will come from the new city.The new city’s residents will have annual income per head of $3,000 more than the national average of $30,294 in 20 years.Stressing the importance of Turkey escaping from the middle-income and “middle-technology” traps, Kılıçdaroğlu said the “Center Turkey” mega city would complement the party’s economic vision that is based on four pillars: Democracy, competition, fair distribution of wealth, and merit-based state organization for sustainability.“Perhaps the public was not expecting such a project, but Turkey and the world needs it. We will transform Turkey into a global port,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.The program also aims to push Turkey into the global top 20 on human development with an annual economic growth of 6 percent and an unemployment rate of lower than 5 percent.Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said the great project revealed on May 21 by main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was plagiarized from his former project, adding all concepts heard including a “central hub” were from his former projects.During his visit to the Black Sea province of Sinop on May 21, Davutoğlu said his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was the one that had founded the central state, Turkey, and that the concepts used in the CHP’s project belonged to them.“If Kılıçdaroğlu read the back page of the book I penned in 2001, ‘Strategic Depth,’ he could have seen that I had used the concept ‘central hub,’” he said.“This is clearly academic plagiarizing. He is using the concept of Afro-Eurasia. This is what we have said in our election agenda,” he added.