Turkey's new canal across Istanbul to cost US$15b

Istanbul

TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's project to build a canal in Istanbul will cost around US$15 billion, according to the country's transport minister.

"We will break the ground for the first bridge by the end of June," Adil Karaismailoglu, minister of transportation and infrastructure, told state-run TRT. The six bridges spanning the canal will cost US$1.4 billion, the minister said.

The 45-kilometre Canal Istanbul, which will link the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, was dubbed by Mr Erdogan as his "crazy project" when he first announced it a decade ago. The waterway is projected to create a city with a population of half a million.

Critics say they are concerned the venture will impact an international agreement regulating the traffic through the Bosporus and the Dar-danelles straits and meant to ensure stability in the Black Sea region.

Mr Erdogan has said Turkey won't exit the treaty but sees the Canal Istanbul as an alternative to it as the project will enhance the government's control of shipping to and from the Black Sea. Opposition parties say commercial ships can't be forced to take the alternative route and the canal would hit taxpayers and the environment.

The canal would "annihilate" water resources for Istanbul's 16 million residents, ruin the province's nature be-yond repair and make it uninhabitable, according to Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Turkey's largest city.

Mr Karaismailoglu said the government will build two new dams to make up for the water loss due the project. BLOOMBERG