Logistics & Trade Investments

The İskenderun Regional Port Authority handles 12.8% of the cargo moved through Turkish ports and trails only Aliağa and Kocaeli. This volume shows that Hatay remained one of the country's main cargo gateways even after the earthquake. Hatay's exports fell 11.7% in 2023 to USD 5,170 million; in September 2025 monthly exports rose +11.9% on the same month of the previous year. A single month does not prove an annual recovery; the annual 2024–2025 figures are not in this compilation.

What it means for an investor: port and export volumes are the most concrete official gauges of the scale of demand for warehousing, bonded areas, logistics centres and export-oriented production. But how much of the port tonnage is cargo produced in or destined for Hatay, as opposed to transit, cannot be separated from these data; cargo type and country breakdowns should be queried separately before investing.

Passengers in the first eight months of 2026 equal 144% of all of 2025: the airport passed the previous year's total in under a year. International passengers were zero at the end of August 2025, 5,245 by the end of September and 28,314 at year-end; in 2026 they reached 95,868 in eight months. The cumulative figures for July and August 2025 are identical (216,390): there are no recorded passengers in August 2025. DHMİ's table does not give the reason; the programme contains runway and apron repair items (TRY 16 billion, 2023–2026), but no causal link between the two is drawn here.

The load item (5,082.7 tonnes) combines baggage, cargo and mail; in 2025 only 48.7 tonnes of it were cargo (1.0%). The airport is thus passenger-driven today; for air-cargo investments (cold chain, e-commerce distribution) current volumes are very low and demand cannot be inferred from these data.

What it means for an investor: the rapid recovery in passenger numbers points to demand being rebuilt for tourism and business-travel services such as hotels, restaurants, car rental and transfers (interpretation). But the data do not say whether passengers are tourists, business travellers or visitors, or how many nights they stay; accommodation investments need a separate demand study.

The two large road-rail projects (Dörtyol–Hassa TRY 91.2 billion, İskenderun–Topboğazı TRY 33.6 billion) make up more than half of the programme's transport cost. The Dörtyol–Hassa line links the coast with inland Hassa, and the İskenderun–Topboğazı line connects İskenderun towards Antakya. Their 2026 allocations are TRY 2.0 billion and TRY 4.5 billion, with completion foreseen in 2029.

The 2026 allocation for the Hatay–Osmaniye high-speed rail appears as only TRY 1,000, meaning the project is listed but its cash funding is still symbolic (interpretation). At the airport, TRY 14 billion of the TRY 16 billion runway/apron repair had been spent by the end of 2025. Together these show that logistics decisions should separate “advanced” from “planned” infrastructure.

What it means for an investor: for warehouse, customs, cold-chain and distribution investments, access conditions will change between 2027 and 2029. A decision today should be based on existing roads, with new links modelled separately as potential upside.