ANKARA / EMIRATES BUSINESS
Qatari investors will have a unique opportunity to discover Turkey’s diverse real estate landscape and meet with leading local and international developers and market experts at next month’s inaugural Cityscape Turkey exhibition, which will be held from 24-26 March, 2016 at the Istanbul Congress Center.
The latest addition to the Cityscape portfolio of global events, the new destination showcase follows on the back of the success of the Turkey pavilion at Cityscape Global 2015, with a surge in investor interest prompting the launch of a dedicated in-country exhibition.
In 2015, over 500,000 GCC residents visited Turkey with investments from the Gulf accounting for almost 30% of total transactions. According to Turkey’s Ministry of Land Registry, 277 Qatari citizens purchased property in 2015 amounting to 484,000 square metres. Investment from the GCC state has more than doubled in the last 24 months, and doubled again in terms of total square meterage. Most interestingly, the total square meterage purchased per capita is the highest among all countries at over 1,700 square metres per person.
“Turkey appeals to the Qatari investor on multiple levels from the comfort factor of cultural similarities such as halal food and plentiful mosques, through to the cosmopolitan positioning of a city like Istanbul, or the upscale resort communities found on the various coasts, an abundance of quality retail locations and growing presence from renowned international hotel chains. Couple this with steady high returns and a wealth of prime developments that meet stringent international construction standards, and you have a formula for investment success,†said Wouter Molman, Director, Cityscape Global.
The sixth largest European economy with current GDP in excess of US$800 billion, Turkey is also the 17th largest economy in the world and sixth most popular tourism destination, attracting 37 million international visitors in 2014. The country’s real estate sector continues to attract significant levels of foreign direct investment, reaching almost US$5 billion in the first nine months of 2015, according to Gyoder, the country’s association of real estate investment companies.
FDI inflow to the real estate and construction sector totalled US$4.8 billion in 2015 and is expected to top US$10 billion in the medium term. Infrastructure development is also being prioritised, with a third Istanbul airport in the pipeline, and with the introduction of the urban regeneration law, which will see US4400 billion invested into housing projects over the next 20 years, the Turkish government is putting real estate development at the top of its economic agenda.