Digital Connectivity, Cross Border Trade and Regional Development in Türkiye

This article examines how digital connectivity and export orientation can jointly shape regional development in Türkiye, with particular attention to land border provinces. It develops a place-based analytical framework and triangulates recent international evidence with the 2025 United Nations survey of trade facilitation and official December 2025 provincial export data. The survey reports an overall Turkish trade facilitation implementation score of 84.95%, but cross-border paperless trade scores 55.56%, compared with 88.89% for domestic paperless trade. In the export snapshot, Gaziantep records USD 897 million and Hatay USD 556 million, compared with USD 5,688 million for Istanbul. These figures establish differences in administrative interoperability and export scale; they do not identify a causal effect of broadband on exports or regional welfare. The article argues that connectivity can reduce information and coordination costs only when firms can combine it with skills, logistics, interoperable customs procedures and access to markets. It proposes a testable provincial research design and a coordinated policy agenda aimed at broader local participation in cross-border value creation .