The World Bank has approved a $2 billion (€1.7 billion) loan to Türkiye for a new railway line across the Bosporus, the country’s Finance Ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
If completed, the new line will become Türkiye’s largest foreign-financed railway project.
The loan forms part of a wider $6.75 billion (€5.2 billion) financing package backed by several global lenders, including the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the OPEC Fund for International Development.
“The approval of this $2 billion loan marks a coordinated effort by six multilateral development banks to provide $6.75 billion in financing for the Istanbul North Rail Crossing Project,” the World Bank said in a statement this week.
According to previous statements by Türkiye’s Transport Ministry, the Istanbul North Rail Crossing Project (INRAIL) will run through northern Istanbul, near the Black Sea entrance of the Bosporus.
It will include 125 kilometres of high-capacity, electrified railway, as well as 44 tunnels and 42 bridges, officials said.
The INRAIL project aims to connect Gebze, Sabiha Gökçen Airport, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Istanbul Airport and Halkalı, creating a continuous transport corridor across northern Istanbul.
By using the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, the new line will bypass the city centre, easing a long-standing bottleneck and enabling uninterrupted rail traffic between Europe and Asia.
According to the World Bank, INRAIL is expected to increase cross-Bosporus rail freight capacity from 3 million to 50 million tonnes annually, improving travel times, reliability and predictability for freight operators.
The project will also “increase freight and passenger rail capacity … and improve the reliability of critical national and intercontinental transport corridors, including the Trans-Caspian, Türkiye-EU, and Iraq Development Road corridors,” the Bank added.
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