Turkish contractors abroad were very happy with the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations following the apology letter President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The collapse of the Justice and Development Party government’s foreign policy ambitions of neo-Ottomanism, Islamic world leadership, regional leadership, and so forth have cost Turkey enormously in many fields. The escalating terror in the country and Turkey’s growing global isolation caused problems for all sectors of the economy.

While there have been huge losses in tourism and exports, Turkish contractors abroad who used to earn $20 billion-$30 billion in foreign currency annually are now in a serious slump.

Engineering News Record, which is an influential publication of the global contracting sector, publishes an annual list of the world’s largest 250 contractor firms. For many years, Turkish contractors have been No. 2 behind the leader, China. The publication’s recently published 2015 list says China leads the field with 65 companies and Turkey is second with 40.