Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at March 6th, 2009

Jean-Philippe Collin, the CEO of French automotive giant Peugeot, has announced that the company is preparing to invest in Turkey as part of a new project. Speaking at the Geneva Auto Fair on Wednesday, Collin said they were planning to manufacture a new car model and had already started conducting research and development.

“We plan to invest in Turkey for a new compact sedan model. There are some problems in financing the project, and we will accelerate our studies as soon as we find enough money,” he said. (more…)

Posted by meb at February 25th, 2009

Turkish Airlines (THY), Turkey’s national air carrier, will initiate flights between the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir and the Belgian capital of Brussels, Turkey’s Civil Aviation Directorate said on Tuesday. (more…)

Posted by meb at February 19th, 2009

Five companies, including U.S. auto parts giant Gates, Turkish-Dutch joint venture Cappadocia Textile and Italian automotive electronics giant Eldor have announced plans to build plants in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir before the end of 2010.

The new investments are expected to create 3,000 new job opportunities, the Anatolian Agency reported.

Turkey has started to receive offers of major investments after tax incentives were resumed and promotional activities took place overseas, the president of the Executive Board of the Aegean Free Zone Development and Operating Company (ESBAS), Kaya Tuncer, told to the agency. (more…)

Posted by meb at February 9th, 2009

İstanbul Atatürk Airport saw the highest increase in air traffic in Europe in 2008, according to a recent report prepared by Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air navigation. Becoming the 10th busiest airport in Europe, air traffic at the İstanbul airport increased by 5 percent in 2008 over the previous year.

“İstanbul Atatürk Airport is also scheduled to grow rapidly over the coming years. The combination of this growth and the continuing strength of growth trends in Turkey, in particular the growth of tourism, mean that around 2010, Istanbul will join the limited number of airports where capacity is restricting growth,” the report stated. (more…)

Posted by meb at February 9th, 2009

Turkish automotive sector exports to EU-member states declined 56.1 percent to $882.6 million in January 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, the Anatolian Agency reported citing Uludag Exporters’ Association figures.

Turkey’s automotive exports to European Union countries, with the exclusion of Malta and Latvia, fell in the same term, the figures revealed.

Exports to EU-member states fell 60.5 percent to $648.9 million, while exports to Spain were down 91.7 percent to $10 million and exports to Romania declined 76 percent to $21 million. In January 2007, exports to Spain reached $132 million and exports to Romania stood at $92 million. (more…)

Posted by meb at February 5th, 2009

A total of 130 workers resigned from the Hyundai Assan plant at Kocaeli, south of Istanbul, receiving full compensation pay plus two months worth of extra salary, in accordance with the company’s cost-cutting precautions.
“To survive, we are trying to cut costs,” said Kaan Bakırcıoğlu, Hyundai Assan’s Public Relations Chief. “We have contract workers at the factory. Their contracts were not renewed,” he told Anatolia News Agency. “Plus, 130 workers quit their jobs and received full compensation. They also received two months worth of salary as a bonus. We offered this chance to those who needed money.” (more…)

Posted by meb at January 19th, 2009

The Turkish automotive sector is taking an especially hard beating in the present global financial turbulence, with exports in the sector, long considered the locomotive of Turkish exports, shrinking by almost 70 percent in the first two weeks of January over the same period last year.

From Jan. 1 to Jan. 15 the country exported units totaling $250.9 million, down from $818.9 million last year.

Plummeting demand in international markets has led to closings in all of the sector’s main producers. Ford Otosan, OYAK Renault and Tofaş announced 12-day cuts in production for the month of January in response to falling demand. (more…)

Posted by meb at January 13th, 2009

A German automotive supplier will soon launch a greenfield investment in Turkey, spending 15 million euros despite the darkening outlook in the Turkish automotive industry, which is suffering from a contraction in domestic and international sales.

C. Rob. Hammerstein GmbH & Co. KG (CRH), based in Solingen, Germany, and the Coordination Council for the Improvement of the Investment Environment (YOİKK) announced in a joint statement yesterday that a CRH facility will be built in Gebze, Kocaeli, and that it will employ 400 workers once finished. (more…)