ISTANBUL: They are among Istanbul’s most iconic sights — magnificent waterside mansions strung out along the Bosphorus as the waters of the strait dividing Europe and Asia lap almost at their front doors.
Once the preserve of the Ottoman elite and affluent foreigners working in what was Constantinople, the mansions, known as yalis, were made famous in novels and more recently through modern Turkey’s hugely successful TV soap operas.
But dozens are now up for sale as Turkey enters a more troubled economic period and owners seek to cash in their luxury assets.
Prospective new owners can expect to pay up to $100 million for one of the premium properties — but have the chance of obtaining a Turkish passport thrown in.
With such a hefty asking price — as well as the opportunity of becoming a Turkish national — buyers are likely to be foreigners, heralding a drastic shake-up in the mansions’ ownership.
Real-estate brokers in Istanbul said that out of around 600 waterside yalis along the Bosphorus, 60 were currently up for sale.
The Turkish lira this summer plunged in value as markets reacted to a bitter spat with the United States and many buyers think now is the perfect time to snap up property assets while the currency is cheap.
Sales have to be in Turkish lira — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has banned the sale, rent or leasing of property being conducted in, or indexed to foreign currencies.
Brokers say that in a major turnaround, prospective buyers are almost never Turkish and are likely to be from the Middle East, especially Ankara’s closest Gulf ally, Qatar.
“With the lira losing value, Istanbul has become a paradise for people from the Gulf with higher purchasing power in their hands,” Hamed Elhamian, sales director at ANKA Invest, said.
“Investors from the Gulf believe that the lira will rise in value in the near future and their investments will appreciate in a very short time,” he said.
Ugur Ayhan, a luxury real-estate consultant, also said foreign buyers had been showing greater interest in Turkey over recent months.
“Our potential clients are largely from Middle Eastern countries. We see people from Azerbaijan and Iran but we have a customer portfolio dominated by Qatar,” he said.
Along with the financial incentives, another attraction of buying a property is the possibility of gaining a Turkish passport, which offers eased or visa-free travel to key destinations.
Under a decree issued last month, Turkey made it easier for foreigners to become Turkish citizens by reducing the financial and investment criteria for citizenship.
Foreigners now need to have $500,000 deposited in Turkish banks — down from the previously required $3 million — while fixed capital investment was cut from $2 million to $500,000.
And crucially, individuals owning property worth $250,000 or more are now also entitled to become Turkish citizens, compared with the previous value necessary of $1 million.
Yet Ayhan said that, while the latest measures would ramp up demand for newly-built apartments in Istanbul, a yali was an ultra-luxury asset beyond the range of most buyers.
“It is not possible to buy a luxury apartment, let alone a yali with $250,000,” he said.
Among the hundreds of mansions along the two sides of the Bosphorus, 360 of them are of historic value, according to real-estate broker Pinar Ayikcan Tuna.
For the historic mansions, potential buyers need to receive permission from both the development directorate of the Bosphorus and the council of monuments for any renovations or to fortify a building’s exterior facade.
“Turkish laws require that historic buildings are renovated or restored according to the original,” Ayhan said.
Some of the mansions are still owned by members of the Turkish elite, including the two largest family conglomerates: Koc and Sabanci.
However, said Elhamian: “The domestic interest in the real estate is very low.”
“Many local Turkish citizens and developers are looking to sell their real estate to foreigners who are looking to buy luxury properties worth more than the $250,000 needed for citizenship.”
Turkish soap operas, often with dozens of episodes lasting two hours each, hold the Arab world in thrall and have also tempted potential buyers from the Middle East.
Many of the soaps, which range from modern romances to historic dramas, have evocative settings in waterside mansions on the Bosphorus. Tour companies in Istanbul even offer Arab tourists bus trips to the locations.
Interest surged in particular following the hit 2008-2010 series “Ask-i Memnu” (“Forbidden Love”), which ran to almost 80 episodes and was wildly popular in the Arab world.
Its dramatic scenes of love and betrayal within a rich Istanbul family — based on an over 100-year-old novel but updated to the present day — were filmed in a historic yali in the city’s Sariyer district.
“Those soap operas are actually our big advertisement overseas,” Tuna said.
“People from Middle Eastern countries come and buy these kinds of properties here because having a Bosphorus mansion in Istanbul is like a signature of power and it is a very unique beauty.”
Reha Grandjean, French-Turkish and family owner of a mansion on the Bosphorus, said to own such a place was special.
“It is a particular property because as soon as one of them is put on sale, everyone wants their ‘yali’, everyone wants their little paradise.”
Power and beauty: Foreigners snap up Istanbul’s iconic waterfront mansions
Power and beauty: Foreigners snap up Istanbul’s iconic waterfront mansions
- Dozens of yalis are now up for sale as Turkey enters a more troubled economic period and owners seek to cash in their luxury assets
- Prospective new owners can expect to pay up to $100 million for one of the premium properties
Saudi Arabia committed to embracing sustainablility-driven growth in tourism sector, minister says at WEF
- Ahmed Al-Khateeb spoke in Davos ahead of launch of briefing paper on the future of travel and tourism sector
- He said Saudi Arabia continues to place a strong emphasis on supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs
DAVOS: The tourism sector in Saudi Arabia, which has undergone a transformative shift in recent years, must continue to grow with sustainable practices front and center, according to the country’s tourism minister.
Speaking at a media briefing on Monday attended by Arab News at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Ahmed Al-Khateeb said it was vital the tourism industry embraced a sustainable agenda if it was to continue its upward trajectory without impacting natural environments and the communities living in them.
The Kingdom has been working with major global organizations, including the WEF, UN Tourism, and the World Travel and Tourism Council in order to achieve this, the minister said.
Al-Khateeb was speaking ahead of the launch of a WEF briefing paper on the future of the travel and tourism sector, as well as a new whitepaper from the Ministry of Tourism on investments in the sector, which showcases Saudi Arabia’s position as one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations globally.
He emphasized that the Kingdom was approaching sustainability from three key perspectives: environmental, economic and social. He added that focusing on the environment alone would not garner satisfactory results.
He said: “People travel to explore other peoples and cultures and to enjoy nature and the environment. If we don’t protect the environment, presented by nature, people will not travel. We need to ensure sustainability across all sectors — environmentally, economically, and socially.
“In 2019 we commissioned a study with the WTTC and Oxford Intelligence to analyze the sustainability of our industry, which revealed that our sector contributes to about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“While this isn’t as high as initially feared, it’s still a concern. If we don’t come up with the right tools to reduce this in the best-case scenario, or at least maintain this, with the very high and fast growth of our industry in the next decade, we’re afraid this number will double to 15 or 16 percent in the worst-case scenario.”
The Kingdom has already begun addressing these concerns by launching campaigns to reduce food and water waste, in conjunction with hospitality chains like Hilton and Marriott. And in 2023 it spearheaded initiatives such as the Sustainable Tourism Global Center, working with international organizations like the UN and the WTTC to promote responsible tourism practices worldwide.
From the economic perspective, Al-Khateeb highlighted how important small and medium-size enterprises were to the sector, making up 80 percent of the global tourism industry.
Ensuring the viability of these SMEs was crucial as the sector grows, especially thanks to their job-creation potential, he said. This was increasingly the case for women, including in Saudi Arabia where a milestone 25 percent of tourism sector jobs in 2023 were held by females, he added.
Saudi Arabia continues to place a strong emphasis on supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs, which includes initiatives to train and support the next generation of tourism leaders, with 100,000 Saudis being trained annually through a partnership with UN Tourism, Al-Khateeb said.
He added: “We’ve funded over 1,500 small businesses through the Saudi Tourism Development Fund over the past two years, and we continue to make the sector more attractive as a viable business opportunity for entrepreneurs.
“I am very optimistic. We want to further promote the sector, for it to prosper and to grow. We want to make this sector more important in Saudi Arabia, and we took a decision to invest in the sector to open it up.”
With the value of the global tourism industry expected to grow to $11 trillion by 2030, Al-Khateeb said that Saudi Arabia recognized the importance of both government and private sector collaboration, adding: “(Governments) design, but (the private sector) implement, they invest, they take the risk.”
He added: “The private sector is very important in our industry: It’s run by the private sector and we believe and we know in Saudi Arabia how important it is. That’s why we invited the private sector for the first time to join the G20 meetings held in Riyadh, and since then they have been joining all of them.”
‘Unlock the full potential of human capital by making healthcare an utmost priority,’ Saudi minister tells WEF
- Faisal Alibrahim said healthy, resilient and productive human capital is the backbone of economic vitality
- Participating in a session at Saudi House, he said health was a major part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 agenda
DUBAI: Healthy, resilient, and productive human capital is the backbone of economic vitality, Faisal Alibrahim, the Saudi minister of economy and planning, told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday.
“However, we see an interesting story where we invest billions in energy, education and other solutions, but the investments in healthcare seem to be taking a second priority,” he added.
Part of Saudi House, a centralized hub serving as a meeting point for government officials, business leaders and other stakeholders at the forum, the panel was moderated by Faisal J. Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News.
It featured health experts such as Dr. Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; Sir Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the World Health Organization; Rayan Fayez, deputy CEO of NEOM; and Dr. Nouf Al-Numair, secretary-general of the Saudi Ministerial Committee for Health in All Policies.
Alibrahim said health was a major part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 agenda and it was “important for us to unlock the full potential of human capital in the Kingdom by making healthcare our utmost priority.”
Al-Numair said: “Saudi Arabia has taken concrete and very clear steps to adopt health in all policies.”
The initiative started “by issuing a royal decree that puts public health as a priority in all laws and regulations to prevent diseases and to increase the life expectancy of our population,” she added.
One of the committee’s policies is reducing the amount of salt and bread in foods, aimed at curbing hypertension, which affects cardiovascular health and, in turn, mortality.
“Eventually, (this) will increase the life expectancy in our population, so we have a clear understanding of what success looks like, which is linked to certain KPIs,” said Al-Numair.
A significant part of health is prevention and one of the most important tools for prevention is vaccination, Nishtar told the panel.
Although “there is a lobby of naysayers,” she added that her experience across countries has been varied with some showing a strong demand for vaccines.
“We are looking at our resource envelope, and we’re trying to raise more money, because the demand (for vaccines) from countries is so huge,” she said.
The WHO’s Sir Farrar called for a more horizontal structure with health and science built into different verticals — such as education and transport — along with a “governance structure, which ensures an inclusive voice for every ministry and every constituency.”
“Then, you have the opportunity to not have health as seen through the lens, frankly, of illness, but to have health seen through the lens of well-being,” he said.
He also asserted the need for countries to be able to adopt such a structure “either to address inequalities within the countries or inequalities between the countries.”
Health and well-being are a core part of the 15 sectors NEOM has identified as the “economic engines” of the futuristic city, said Fayez.
He said: “A lot of people hear about NEOM as this mega project or giga project, but it’s important to highlight that it is not the real estate or the infrastructure alone that makes NEOM.”
He explained that NEOM’s healthcare strategy is driven by four principles — prevention when possible, world-class treatment when needed, use of technology and sharing with the globe.
Saudi banking sector poised for stability with 10% lending growth: S&P Global
- Mortgage lending in the Kingdom is set for growth, supported by lower interest rates
- Credit losses are expected to range between 50 and 60 basis points over the next 12 to 24 months
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s banking sector is set to maintain profitability this year, with lending projected to grow by 10 percent, driven by corporate loans linked to Vision 2030 projects, according to a new analysis.
In its latest report, S&P Global said that stable credit growth, fueled by lower interest rates and a supportive economic environment, will underpin the sector’s performance.
The Saudi Arabia Banking Sector Outlook 2025 report projects that credit growth will bolster banks’ profitability, stabilizing the return on assets at 2.1 to 2.2 percent — aligning with its 2024 estimates.
The growth is. part of the Kingdom’s spending on Vision 2030 programs, which has increased at an annual rate of 33.8 percent since the initiative’s inception, revealed Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan in a statement in November.
“We expect Saudi banks will continue resorting to international capital markets to help fund growth related to Vision 2030,” said Zeina Nasreddine, credit analyst at S&P Global Ratings. “Banks are poised for stable profitability in 2025 as the volume effect compensates for lower margins.”
The analysis aligns with data from the Saudi Central Bank, which reported a 13.33 percent year-on-year increase in bank loans to SR2.93 trillion ($782 billion) in November, the highest growth rate in 22 months. Corporate loans were the main driver, rising 17.28 percent to SR1.58 trillion.
S&P Global’s report also said that mortgage lending in the Kingdom is set for growth, supported by lower interest rates and expanding demographics driving demand in the residential real estate sector.
Credit losses are expected to range between 50 and 60 basis points over the next 12 to 24 months, supported by banks’ strong provisioning buffers.
External funding needs will persist due to Vision 2030 investment requirements, though recent mortgage-backed securities initiatives could provide some relief, the agency said.
“NIM (Net interest margin) is expected to drop by 20- 30 bps by the end of 2025 relative to 2023 as SAMA follows the Fed’s rate cuts to maintain its currency peg,” said S&P Global.
The report anticipates nonperforming loan formation will remain slow in 2025, with NPLs increasing to 1.7 percent of systemwide loans by the end of the year, up from 1.3 percent in September, owing to fewer write-offs.
S&P Global said that Saudi banks are well-capitalized, ensuring their creditworthiness, adding that earnings generation is sufficient to support asset growth, with the dividend payout ratio expected to average 50 percent in 2025.
Saudi Arabia is projected to witness an average gross domestic product growth of 4 percent between 2025 and 2027, compared to 0.8 percent in 2024.
The US-based agency further said that Vision 2030 initiatives are anticipated to drive medium-term non-oil growth, fueled by increased construction activities and a growing services sector supported by rising consumer demand and an expanding workforce.
The report also highlighted the Kingdom’s booming tourism sector, with growth in the hospitality industry driven by improved visa processes and enhanced leisure options.
Closing Bell: Saudi main index closes in the green, reaches 12,379
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index edged higher on Monday, rising by 47.67 points, or 0.39 percent, to close at 12,379.54.
The benchmark index saw a total trading turnover of SR6.3 billion ($1.7 billion), with 116 of the listed stocks advancing, while 117 declined.
The MSCI Tadawul Index also gained 5.22 points, or 0.34 percent, to finish at 1,551.75. In contrast, the Kingdom’s parallel market, Nomu, ended the day lower, losing 281.88 points, or 0.89 percent, to close at 31,318.24, with 43 stocks advancing and 45 retreating.
Thimar Development Holding Co. emerged as the best-performing stock of the day, with its share price jumping 10 percent to SR51.70.
Other notable gainers included Arabian Pipes Co., which saw a 6.37 percent increase to SR13.36, and Middle East Specialized Cables Co., which rose by 4.95 percent to SR47.75.
Saudi Reinsurance Co. and ACWA Power Co. also posted solid gains, with their share prices surging by 4.82 percent and 4.41 percent, respectively, to SR58.70 and SR435.20.
Alamar Foods Co. saw the sharpest decline, with its share price dropping 3.33 percent to SR78.50. Nice One Beauty Digital Marketing Co. and Naseej International Trading Co. also recorded losses, with their shares slipping 2.91 percent and 2.60 percent, respectively, to SR56.80 and SR97.30.
Saudi Industrial Investment Group saw a 2.40 percent dip, closing at SR17.90, while Riyadh Cables Group Co. dropped 2.34 percent, settling at SR141.80.
Meyar Co. secured SR5.5 million in financing from Riyadh Bank to support its business expansion and enhance operational efficiency.
According to a bourse filing, the five-year financing agreement is part of the bank’s guarantee and bills program. The funds will be used to expand Meyar’s operations, develop production lines, and strengthen supply chains to boost overall efficiency. The investment aligns with the company’s strategic goals of increasing productivity and scaling its operations.
On the market, Meyar saw a 5.06 percent increase in its share price, reaching SR70.60.
Saudi Top Trading Co. announced the completion of construction at its West Coast Factory, which is set to begin trial production in the first quarter of 2025.
Located at the Rabigh PlusTech Park, the factory will start receiving raw materials, including polymer scrap, rubber, and synthetic wax, from Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co. This development follows a memorandum of understanding signed with Petro Rabigh in December 2022.
Under the MoU, Saudi Top Trading secured a 30-year lease on a site to produce 50,000 tonnes annually of polymer compounds, rubber, and waxes. With construction now completed, Saudi Top Trading is poised to enhance its production capabilities and leverage its partnership with Petro Rabigh.
THC partners with SIRC to boost sustainability, innovate waste solutions
JEDDAH: Saudi Investment Recycling Co. and the Kingdom’s the Helicopter Co. have partnered to boost sustainability efforts and develop innovative waste management solutions.
The two companies, operating under the Saudi Public Investment Fund, signed a memorandum of understanding that highlights their commitment to advancing sustainable aviation practices and reducing environmental impact, supporting the Kingdom’s transition to a circular economy in line with Vision 2030.
As part of its 2035 goals, SIRC aims to divert 85 percent of industrial hazardous waste from landfills through recycling and treatment.
The waste sector also targets diverting 60 percent of construction and demolition waste, with 12 percent recycled, 35 percent reused, and 13 percent treated.
Under the partnership, the companies will collaborate on technology-driven operations and expand THC’s services into new sectors that align with sustainability objectives, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Ziyad Al-Shiha, SIRC CEO, described the partnership as a step toward driving innovation, cutting emissions, and ensuring long-term environmental safety for the sector.
“This collaboration strengthens the Kingdom’s leadership in the global green economy and paves the way for a more sustainable future,” Al-Shiha said, adding that the deal aligns with broader efforts to position Saudi Arabia as a leader in sustainability and green economic initiatives.
Commenting on the collaboration, Arnaud Martinez, CEO of THC, said the initiative is part of his company’s strategy to minimize its carbon footprint.
Martinez added that the agreement is about turning ambitious ideas into tangible achievements that contribute to a sustainable future for aviation and the environment.
THC posted on its X account: “We are pleased to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Investment Recycling Co., with the aim of enhancing common interests in the waste management and recycling sector, and various environmental sectors in line with achieving the goals of Vision 2030.”
The investment recycling company, the largest industrial waste management company in the Gulf Cooperation Council with a fully integrated platform to handle, store, transport, treat, and safely dispose of the hazardous waste generated by industries, plans to divert 100 percent of municipal solid waste, recycling 81 percent and processing 19 percent for waste-to-energy purposes.
These efforts align with the ambitious targets set by the Waste Management National Regulatory Framework for 2035, including a 13-million-tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, attracting SR6 billion ($1.6) billion in foreign investments, creating 23,000 jobs, and contributing $9.9 billion to the national gross domestic product.
