Polyplex set to invest $150 million in Turkey

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Minister Çağlayan says new investments will fight the current account gap. AA photo

A planned investment in Turkey by Indian polyester film producer Polyplex Group is “another brick in the wall the incentive scheme has begun to build against the current account deficit,” Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan has said.

Polyplex will invest $150 million to build a PET resin production plant in Çorlu, the industrial district of the western province Tekirdağ. The investment was announced at a press meeting, which Çağlayan and Polyplex executives attended.

The construction will take place in two phases, and the ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled to take place before the end of June. The planned annual production capacity of the plant, which will directly employ 250 people, is 600,000 tons. The plant’s annual export volume is estimated to hit $1 billion in three years, with 70 to 80 percent of the plant’s products being exported to European, American and Russian markets.

Polyplex has plants in India, Turkey, Thailand, and is currently building a facility in the United States.
The new investment will help reduce Turkey’s foreign trade deficit in the petrochemicals industry, Çağlayan said. Turkey recorded an $11 billion trade deficit last year in petrochemicals, he added.

The first phase of the investment will be complete in the first quarter of 2013, and the second phase will be completed three years later, said Kapil Gupta, senior vice president of Polyplex, adding that some of the raw material for the resin will be purchased from local suppliers. Polyplex plans a separate $500 million investment to produce the raw materials for resins within five to eight years, he said.