Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 21
By Aygun Badalova – Trend
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing funds to Turkey for investing into a new high-tech fibre-optic submarine communications cable system that will carry data between 17 countries, from Singapore to France and Italy, EBRD reported August 21.
The Bank is providing a $50 million loan to Türk Telekom Group, Turkey’s largest telecommunications company, which is building the new submarine cable system in a consortium with 17 other telecommunications operators, according to the report.
The financing will be used to lay cables under the sea and build a branching unit in Marmaris on the Mediterranean coast, in Muğla Province, south-western Turkey.
Branching units are used in submarine cable systems to provide traffic and power routing between the trunk and branch cables.
The $700 million network, dubbed SEA-ME-WE 5 (South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 5), will be approximately 20,000 kilometres long and is expected to become operational in late 2016, connecting South-East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Europe.
The cable’s design capacity is 24 terabits per second on three fibre pairs. Once completed, its advanced 100 Gbps1 technology is expected to meet the rapid growth in demand for fast internet traffic between Europe and Asia.
The system will also bolster Turkey’s internet infrastructure as the country’s growing economy needs greater connectivity and ever-stronger commercial ties with Europe, the United States of America and Asia.
The EBRD started investing in Turkey in 2009 and currently operates from offices in Istanbul, Ankara and Gaziantep. Some 98 percent of the Bank’s investments in the country are in the private sector.
To date, the EBRD has invested over eight billion euros in Turkey through some 200 projects in infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, industry and finance. It has also mobilised about 17 billion euros for these ventures from other sources of financing.
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