ISTANBUL, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Istanbul municipality has exported its first unsecured eurobond to international capital markets to fund its uncomplete and new infrastructure projects, Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of Turkey's biggest city, announced on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference in Istanbul, Imamoglu said the unsecured eurobond issuance worth 580 million U.S. dollars was completed after a series of meetings with global companies.
Imamoglu said the successful issuance attracted a total of 2.5 billion dollars of demand.
Issued with a five-year maturity, the bonds would be used to finance four metro line projects in the city, he said.
"In a move to ease the city's traffic congestion problem, the new metro lines will introduce 39 new stations and an additional 52.1 kilometers to Istanbul's metro railway system, while serving 275,000 passengers hourly," he also noted.
Earlier, Imamoglu said he was forced to seek loans from abroad as Turkey's state-owned banks closed their doors to the municipality.
Imamoglu, the candidate for the main opposition the Republican People's Party, won the Istanbul mayorship in local elections in 2019. Enditem
