Erdoğan meets with Turkish tycoon Koç

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Rahmi Koç’s meeting with Prime Minister Erdoğan came only nine days after the businessman’s harsh criticism on the recently approved commercial code.

The Turkish prime minister met with Rahmi Koç, the honorary president of Turkish conglomerate Koç Holding, at his office in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul yesterday.

The meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Koç was closed to the press and lasted nearly 30 minutes, Anatolia news agency reported. 

The visit came just nine days after Koç said a new trade code was deeply hurting businesses due to heavy taxes. 

“The new trade code is straining. We also feel another strain coming from the government,” the businessman said during a meeting in Antalya on Dec. 10. “This is not the time to say that the crisis has slightly touched us.”

Erdoğan had said repeatedly that the crisis in Europe would not even “touch” Turkey.
The European crisis has tangentially passed Turkey, Erdoğan says. 

The meeting between Erdoğan and Koç was on producing a national automobile, Doğan News Agency claimed in a report yesterday, relying on anonymous sources.

Erdoğan had previously urged Turkish businessmen to work on producing a 100 percent Turkish automobile.