The World Bank Group has mobilized more than $21 billion in private capital for Türkiye since 2022, including $5.4 billion in its 2026 fiscal year alone, the lender said on Oct. 13.
The fiscal 2026 figure was 520% higher than in 2022, the institution said, placing Türkiye among the countries where the largest amounts of private-sector capital were mobilized worldwide. The World Bank’s fiscal year runs from July to June.
"Mobilized" capital refers to private money that flows into projects because of the World Bank Group’s involvement, for example through guarantees, co-financing or risk-sharing structures, rather than the lender’s own loans.
Record year for developing economies
Globally, the group said fiscal 2026 set a record. Private capital mobilized for developing countries rose from $35 billion in fiscal 2022 to $112 billion in fiscal 2026, more than tripling in four years.
The announcement came as finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Bangkok for the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, where the institutions have been urging governments to draw in more private investment as public budgets come under strain.
Guarantees for small businesses
In Türkiye, the World Bank Group said its work has focused on widening small businesses’ access to finance, supporting employment and entrepreneurship, and providing long-term private financing for critical infrastructure.
It singled out the FINGROW program, under which an $868 million World Bank Group guarantee enabled $1.74 billion in private-sector financing for small businesses in Türkiye. In effect, each dollar of guarantee helped unlock roughly two dollars of lending.
Access to long-term, affordable credit remains a challenge for Turkish companies. With the central bank’s policy rate at 37% to fight inflation, lira loans are expensive, and many firms rely on foreign-currency funding from international lenders and export credit agencies to finance investment.
Turkish banks have been active borrowers on international markets this year. State lender VakıfBank, for example, said this week that the new funding it has raised from abroad in 2026 has reached $9 billion, including about $2 billion from Austria’s OeKB and the World Bank Group’s IBRD and MIGA.
The World Bank Group has been one of Türkiye’s largest development partners for decades. It recently also approved $750 million in financing to modernize the country’s agrifood sector.
Sources
- Dünya Bankası: Türkiye için 21 milyar dolar harekete geçirildi (Bigpara/Hürriyet)
- VakıfBank’ın sağladığı dış kaynak 9 milyar dolara ulaştı (Dünya)
Photo: Shiny Things / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
