Türkiye, the new regional power in Africa (2/3). A Turkish economic presence

1. A firmly established institutional framework

As mentioned in the first part of this article, Türkiye has encouraged and institutionalised its economic cooperation with Africa by initially setting up formal meetings under its aegis. In 2008, the first Türkiye-Africa cooperation summit was held in Istanbul. An "Istanbul Declaration on Türkiye-Africa Partnership: Cooperation and Solidarity for a Common Future" was adopted at the end of the discussions, establishing a mechanism for monitoring the commitments made during the summit. The second Türkiye-Africa Partnership Summit was held under the theme "A new partnership model to strengthen sustainable development and integration" in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea [1]. This will be followed by a third summit in Istanbul in 2021 entitled "Enhanced Partnership for Shared Development and Prosperity" [2]; More than 100 ministers and 16 African heads of state and government took part in this last three-day summit [3] around panels such as "Peace, Security and Governance", "Trade, Investment and Industry", "Education, Science, Technology and Innovation", "Youth and Women’s Development", "Infrastructure Development and Agriculture" and "Promoting Resilient Health Systems" [4]; the next summit is due to be held in 2026 in an as yet unknown African country [5]. In 2021, for example, the Turkish President used the event to announce that Türkiye would be delivering 15 million doses of vaccine against covid-19 to the African countries worst affected [6].

Other meetings on a smaller scale, but nonetheless significant in the development of Turkish-African economic relations, are also regularly organised: Türkiye-Africa Economic and Trade Forum in 2021 in Istanbul [7], Türkiye-Africa Agri-Food Forum in Antalya [8] in 2017, Türkiye-ECOWAS Economic and Trade Forum [9] in Istanbul in 2018 [10], etc. Finally, still on the institutional front, Türkiye has been a member of the African Development Bank since 2013, participating in the group’s development fund and various other activities within it [11].

In addition, in order to promote the establishment and activities of its companies, Türkiye manages, through the Turkish Council for Foreign Economic Relations (DEIK), commercial chambers in 48 African countries aimed at promoting bilateral trade and mutual investment [12]; Most of these chambers were opened during the 2010s and are used to promote the signing of trade agreements - Ankara has around fifty on the African continent - including free trade agreements, such as those Türkiye has signed with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Mauritius and Sudan [13], a greater number of countries than those with which Ankara has signed similar agreements in the Middle East, despite being in its immediate regional neighbourhood [14]; negotiations are also underway for other free trade agreements with Ghana, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Chad and Libya [15].

2. Exponential investment by Turkish companies in Africa

One of the most convincing results of these agreements and other institutional rapprochements is the substantial increase in trade between Türkiye and Africa: since Ankara launched its African initiative policy in 1998, the total volume of its trade with the continent has increased tenfold, from 4.09 billion dollars in 2000 to 45 billion dollars in 2022 [16]. At the same time, Türkiye’s exports to Africa have risen from 2.1 billion dollars in 2003 to 21.2 billion dollars in 2022 [17], an increase of more than 909% in less than ten years. The type of Turkish products most exported to African countries is chemical substances and products (fertilisers, mineral fuels, industrial distillation products [18], etc.); with exports of $2.9 billion in 2021 followed by $4 billion in 2022, this type of export has grown by 37.6% in a single year. Chemical substances and products are followed by steel, which generated more than $3 billion in revenues last year. After steel, cereals, pulses and oilseeds generated revenues of 2.6 billion dollars [19]. Türkiye’s foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa has also risen substantially in recent years: from $22 million in 2001 [20], the value of Turkish FDI in Africa rose to $10 billion in 2021 [21] - an increase of 45 354% in twenty years - illustrating Türkiye’s proactive economic investment [22] in African countries.

As the maps accompanying these articles show, the economic dynamics of recent years between Ankara and the African continent speak for themselves: while the countries of North Africa are by far among Türkiye’s main trading partners because of the many cultural and historical links that unite them, the trend in their trade seems to be reversing: imports and exports between the countries of Africa - particularly West Africa - and Türkiye appear to be much higher than those with its traditional partners: Exports to Mali have risen by 140% in ten years, between 2012 and 2022, while Turkish imports from Mali, for example, have grown by 2842% over the same period; the same applies to Senegal, for example (growth rate of 710% between 2012 and 2022 for Turkish imports from Senegal and 108% for Turkish exports), and Côte d’Ivoire (162% and 324% respectively); with imports from Niger rising from $80,000 in 2012 to $29.20 million in 2022, the growth rate even reaches 36,971% [23].

Thanks to the political and economic partnerships established by Ankara with most of the countries on the African continent, Turkish companies enjoy a positive aura [24] which enables them invest massively in the African market. The Turkish industrial group Limak, for example, launched production of its first cement plant in West Africa in 2019, in Abidjan [25]; the mining company Hacıoğlu Madencilik, for its part, obtained the exploitation of a gold mine in Ghana in 2024, thus establishing the first Turkish gold refinery in Africa [26]. Turkish companies are firing on all cylinders, but the construction sector appears for the moment to be the spearhead of the Turkish economic presence on the African continent: In recent years, Turkish companies have built the Tripoli Convention Centre in Libya, the Kigali Convention Centre in Rwanda, the Parliament building in Cameroon, Blaise Diagne International Airport in Senegal and Niamey Airport in Niger, to name but a few [27]. Turkish building contractors are currently working on projects worth an estimated $85 billion [28]. Yapı Merkezi, for example, is working on the construction of a railway line in Tanzania which, according to its builder, should be the fastest in East Africa [29]; Rönesans Holding has just set foot on the African continent by investing in a motorway project in Rwanda [30]. The Kenyan airport of Enfida, the Tunisian airport of Monastir and the Nigerian airport of Lagos are operated by the Turkish company TAV; hydroelectric power plant projects in Malawi, Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania are currently being carried out by the Çalık Holding group, while Turkish investor Tosyalı - whose chairman, Fuat Tosyalı, is also coordinating chairman of the Turkish-African chambers of commerce DEIK mentioned above [31] - has just launched its first investments in Senegal and Angola in various industrial sectors [32].

Türkiye has also made a name for itself in the energy sector, with the floating power stations built by the Turkish company Karpowership being a prime example. These ships, moored in the port of the client country, are connected to the national electricity grid and supply it with electricity, an energy that many African countries are sometimes critically short of. All the floating power stations produce a total of some 6,000 MW, the same output as Africa’s largest dam - the Great Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia [33] - and are thus capable of substantially changing a country’s electricity situation: Karpowership supplies 15% of Senegal’s electricity needs [34], 60% of Gambia’s, 80% of Sierra Leone’s and 100% of Guinea-Bissau’s [35], and also has customers in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, Gabon and Mozambique [36].

3. Türkiye, a unique diplomatic and economic power in Africa

As explained in the first part of this article, Türkiye has succeeded in establishing itself as an attractive third way for the countries of the African continent, thanks to "win-win" partnerships and an approach that aims to be independent of the traditional major powers. On the economic front, Türkiye’s uniqueness has been expressed in a number of ways, notably in its unprecedented access to rare resources.

In the case of Libya, for example, Türkiye succeeded in forging an agreement in which the security and military aspects were closely intertwined; Türkiye’s military commitment to Tripoli in 2019/2020 - which will be mentioned in more detail in the third part of this article - went hand in hand with an economic agreement under which Libya recognised Türkiye’s right to carry out gas prospecting and exploration activities in the eastern Mediterranean and then, in October 2022, Ankara’s right to carry out such activities in Libyan territorial waters [37]; a veritable leitmotif of Turkish diplomacy, the then Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, now a deputy in Türkiye’s Grand National Assembly, insisted at the signing of the agreement that it had been signed "between two sovereign countries : it is a win-win situation for both, and no other country has the right to interfere" [38].

This pattern was to be repeated shortly afterwards in Somalia: particularly close to Mogadishu, Ankara is providing military support to the Somali authorities, for example by training battalions of the Somali army at a base built by Türkiye on Somali soil (a subject which will be dealt with in the third part of this article). Ankara’s outstretched hand to Mogadishu has led to the establishment of a protean partnership that resulted, among other things, in the signing of an agreement on 18 July 2024 under which Somalia granted Türkiye three gas and oil exploration blocks within its territorial waters [39]. Türkiye thus has exclusive rights to search for hydrocarbon deposits in these waters and, above all, to exploit them if the searches prove fruitful. Proof of the almost permanent link between the signing of major economic agreements and military agreements, the Turkish authorities announced the very next day [40] the deployment of Turkish warships off the coast of Somalia to secure its territorial waters, as agreed in an agreement signed in February 2024 [41].

A similar scenario seems to be emerging in Niger which, after ostensibly rejecting Europe and the United States since the coup d’état in July 2023 [42], is now looking for new partners. As mentioned in the first part of this article, Türkiye has rapidly positioned itself as a privileged new interlocutor; in fact, Ankara covets Niger’s abundant uranium deposits [43], which it needs to operate its Akkuyu power station - built by the Russians - and two other nuclear power stations in the pipeline [44]. On 17 July 2024, Niamey received a Turkish delegation comprising the head of the intelligence services and the ministers of foreign affairs, energy and defence, a few weeks after the Niger authorities revoked the right to exploit uranium mines from French companies (on 20 June) [45] and Canadian companies (on 5 July) [46]. The visit proved a success: on 19 July, an agreement was signed between the two countries, stipulating that "all facilities will be granted" to Turkish companies interested in Niger’s mining sector [47], without however specifying what ore would be extracted (apart from uranium, Niger’s soil also contains coal and gold). Unsurprisingly, the agreement was accompanied by security promises: in addition to energy and mining issues, the discussions were said to have focused on "what [Türkiye can do] to improve [Niger’s] defence industry and intelligence in their fight against terrorism" [48], a rapprochement welcomed by Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, who told Nigerien television that he appreciated "the dynamism of cooperation with Türkiye, particularly in the field of defence" [49]. In fact, a few weeks earlier, Ankara had already sent several hundred of its Syrian mercenaries to Niger to secure a number of mining sites there in the face of the expansion of an increasingly strong jihadist insurgency , some of whose members are directly affiliated to the " Islamic State" organisation, originally from Syria and Iraq [50].

This growing Turkish military presence, intrinsically linked to the development of its economic and political activities on the African continent, will be dealt with in the third and final part of this article.