A plan to diversify Türkiye's power generation through expanded renewable sources and nuclear capacity — alongside infrastructure upgrades to the electricity network — forms part of a broader effort to establish the country as a connecting point for energy flows across the Eurasian region. Alparslan Bayraktar, who holds the Energy and Natural Resources portfolio, delivered the details during the closing session of the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum, held in Istanbul.
A set of benchmarks pointing toward lower dependence on imported energy and the fulfilment of the country's climate targets was laid out by Bayraktar. With approximately 70 percent of the nation's energy drawn from overseas sources, that dependence on external supply formed a central part of his argument for treating energy self-sufficiency as both an economic and a national security priority for the administration.
Wind and solar installations alone have crossed the 43-gigawatt threshold, pushing renewables past the 30 percent mark of the country's total electricity generation capacity. Grid infrastructure spending forms a central pillar of Türkiye's energy agenda, with planned outlays directed at absorbing expanded renewable output, strengthening the resilience of transmission networks, and opening pathways for greater electricity exchange across borders.
Plans are in place to open offshore wind procurement rounds in early 2027, with a target of bringing two gigawatts of fresh renewable generation online each year through the Renewable Energy Resource Area programme. Türkiye's partnership with Rosatom is moving toward the start-up of the first reactor at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, with that milestone now expected within a matter of weeks. With all four reactors brought online, the 4.8-gigawatt plant would supply an estimated tenth of the nation's total electricity needs.
A combined fleet of conventional nuclear units and small modular reactors is expected to bring the country's total installed nuclear capacity to twenty gigawatts by the midpoint of the century. Pointing to the country's position at the intersection of resource-rich and resource-dependent territories, Bayraktar outlined a vision of it functioning as a dependable connector between neighbouring energy markets.
Hosting COP31 — the United Nations climate gathering scheduled for Antalya — positions Türkiye at the centre of international environmental diplomacy and, in turn, weighs on how the country approaches its own energy priorities. Converting climate pledges into concrete investment flows, deployed technologies, and trackable results will be a top agenda item for the Turkish presidency, Bayraktar indicated.
Each country's distinct energy profile and stage of development, he argued, warranted genuine consideration. At the upcoming talks, Türkiye plans to put forward a non-binding worldwide target — informally known as "35 by 35" — under which electricity would account for 35 percent of total final energy use across the globe by 2035. Drawing private investment, forging alliances with multilateral lenders, and deploying newer technologies have all been put forward as necessary components for financing the anticipated shift.
Questions of strengthening financial ties spanning the Eurasian region were among the broader topics taken up at the forum. Under the panel heading "Financial Markets in the Heart of Eurasia: Resilience, Infrastructure, Undervalued Opportunities," government representatives and finance industry leaders took up the question of how regional capital markets might be drawn into closer alignment with one another.
Greater depth and connectivity across Eurasian markets, Chebeskov told attendees, would draw in more participants and sharpen the overall functioning of those financial systems. Ongoing work within the Eurasian Economic Union to build frameworks for cross-border investment and securities access drew his attention, as did a nearly finished arrangement under which licensed market operators would be able to enter the trading environment. Building out market infrastructure — exchanges and depositories in particular — stood at the top of Chebeskov's stated priorities.
Experimental cross-market connections among BRICS member states are being put to the test through pilot programmes run by the Moscow Exchange and Russia's National Settlement Depository. Trading on the Moscow Exchange's equity side has shifted toward a largely domestic participant base, according to Viktor Zhidkov, the bourse's chairman, who outlined how the securities market there has been reshaping itself.
Figures from the past five years show retail stock investment climbing to around sixteen trillion roubles — roughly double its earlier level — while individual holdings in corporate bonds have topped four trillion roubles since 2022. Rouble-denominated corporate bond issuance across the first three quarters of 2026 reached 7.2 trillion roubles, a figure running roughly a fifth above what the equivalent stretch of the prior year recorded.
