On a recent trip to Istanbul, I visited Halaman Printing and Packaging Corp., a family-owned printer of packaging for some of Europe’s best-known brands. Samples of their products filled shelves in their bright, airy facility. Behind the scenes, huge printers hummed, run by a growing and increasingly diverse team.
Özgür Halaman, the company’s chairman, explained how they use environmentally friendly ink and paper, positioning the company as a leader in eco-friendly packaging. Under the leadership of Özgür, his brother Mert, and CEO Barlas Yilmaz, Halaman has grown, modernized, and earned a reputation for being committed to the highest environmental and social standards.
Halaman now boasts 200 employees, more than a quarter of them women, with impressive worker protections. In 2024, the company made Türkiye’s largest digital printing investment. Reinforcing its commitment to sustainability, it has also pursued climate-neutral printing and international recycling certifications.
Until recently, a medium-sized, export-focused manufacturing enterprise like Halaman would have struggled to find long-term financing to invest in equipment to transform its operations. But through a World Bank project implemented by Türk Eximbank, the government’s export credit agency, financial guarantees were used to lower the cost of financing for Türk Eximbank, which in turn enabled long-term investment loans to businesses like Halaman on favorable terms. Halaman used its loan to purchase a state-of-the-art printer.
Mobilizing private sector funding for development goals
Guarantees are a powerful tool to promote foreign direct investment in emerging and middle-income markets and protect investors from risk while funding projects that address country priorities and global challenges. Multilateral development banks alone do not have the resources to fill the global investment gap needed to end poverty on a livable planet.
Guarantees are a growing part of the World Bank Group’s portfolio in Türkiye and overall. Last year, we established the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform to bring our guarantee products and experts together. The platform is housed at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a part of the World Bank Group that has been issuing guarantees for 37 years but is now embarking on a significant expansion. The platform aims to streamline guarantee product offerings across the World Bank Group and mobilize private sector capital toward development in emerging markets and developing economies.
Our experience shows that World Bank Group guarantees reassure investors, lower regulatory capital requirements, and attract much-needed private investment for development projects. Our more streamlined and efficient processes, as part of the new platform, will help us mobilize further resources from the private sector, reduce duplicative efforts, and focus resources on high-impact projects and portfolios. We are already making significant progress toward boosting our annual guarantee issuance to $20 billion by 2030.
The first World Bank guarantee project in Türkiye, the Long-Term Export Finance Guarantee project, began in July 2020. It demonstrated the effectiveness of World Bank guarantees in attracting private capital in Türkiye. The project helped lower borrowing costs for exporters; strengthened financial access for small- and medium-sized enterprises, mid-sized firms, and women-led enterprises; enabled export-driven growth despite economic instability; and institutionalized sustainable finance practices within Türk Eximbank. These practices help our borrower countries pursue long-term economic stability and environmental sustainability.
After the project closed in 2024, the Türkiye Green Export Project built on its foundations and used guarantees to facilitate raising €1 billion of 10-year commercial loans to support sustainability. The project will help provide affordable, long-term financing for exporters to invest in climate-resilient solutions, such as upgrading equipment, heating and cooling systems, and reducing or recycling waste.
That long-term financing from the World Bank is complemented by another project signed last year with Türk Eximbank, which uses MIGA guarantees to provide short-term trade loans to Turkish exporters, managing liquidity needs due to the timing mismatch between incurring production costs (e.g., front-end expenditures for production of export goods) and receiving payments from customers. By reducing borrowing costs and increasing access to foreign currency financing for Turkish exporters, the project aims to support exporters who face high borrowing costs and limited foreign exchange credits. Türk Eximbank will allocate 20 percent of the loans for small and medium enterprises; 15 percent for green export companies; 10 percent for medium-high technology companies; and 15 percent for women-inclusive firms. This will help narrow the finance gap for women-led small and medium enterprises.
Addressing Türkiye’s climate adaptation priorities
While in Istanbul, I also met with Murat Bilgiç, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member, and Meral Murathan, Executive Vice President of TSKB, the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey. TSKB and the World Bank Group have a decades-long history of partnership, and the private development bank has been instrumental in mobilizing private capital through our operations, facilitating access to financing, and attracting investments that support sustainable development and economic growth in Türkiye.
TKSB focuses on identifying market gaps and explicitly aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals. It is also one of our most innovative partners and is currently implementing over $1.5 billion in World Bank projects.
TKSB also has a guarantee-based project in preparation, which proposes to use €600 million in commercial financing raised by TSKB, with the support of a World Bank Group guarantee of €360 million, to extend loans exclusively to small- and medium-sized and mid-cap enterprises that will assess their climate vulnerability and implement adaptation-related measures. The project is developing a first-of-its-kind adaptation toolkit that includes how to assess firms’ vulnerability to changing climate and adaptation needs. Given the scarcity of financing and limited awareness of adaptation tactics, using a guarantee will address a clear market gap and help draw in private capital for investments in resilience.
Seeing these investments in action was remarkable and inspiring. As we continue to tackle complex global challenges, the World Bank’s lead on country and sector dialogue and the International Finance Corporation’s financing and technical assistance will be essential complements to the MIGA-managed guarantees that can unlock private capital in low-income countries.
As I step into my new role as MIGA Vice President for Finance, Risk, Economics and Sustainability, I am looking forward to building on these innovative efforts in Türkiye and around the world. Guarantees will be an important part of the toolkit to mobilize the power of the private sector for public good.
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