Turkish government reaps fruits of incentives: Minister

ISTANBUL

Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan has said there is a huge rise in the issued incentive certificates in the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey.

The number of issued incentive certificates soared by 35 percent through the first half of the year, almost doubling the provisioned investment amount, Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan has said, emphasizing the remarkable rise in the eastern and southeastern regions of the country.

The government issued more than 2,600 investment incentive certificates between January and June, representing 41.2 billion Turkish Liras of investment in total, which is 96 percent higher than during the same period last year.The allocation of the investment amount based on sectors reveals that manufacturing received the lion’s share of investments, accounting for 39 percent of the 41.2-billion lira total.

The energy sector followed with 29 percent, while services received 20 percent and mining got 12 percent.

Turkey adopted a new geographical region and industry-based state incentive system on June 20, 2012. Provinces are ranked in terms of social and economic development and are categorized into six groups in terms of incentive priority.

“We’ve begun to see the positive outcomes of the New Incentive System that we established aiming to eliminate the development gap and to enable production of goods that weren’t produced in Turkey before,” Minister Çağlayan said in a written statement.

He asserted the system was expected to carry both employment in general and in industry onward.

90,500 jobs

The investment incentives certificated within the first six months provisioned to employ in total more than 90,500 people, 65 percent more than last year.

The provinces in the sixth group, mostly consisting of poorer eastern and southeastern provinces, receive the most investment support.

Çağlayan said 330 projects worth 5.1 billion liras benefited from the system in the sixth region, which encompassed the provinces of Ağrı, Ardahan, Batman, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Iğdır, Kars, Mardin, Muş, Siirt, Şanlıurfa, Şırnak and Van.

Compared to last year’s same period, the number of certificates soared by 79 percent while the amount of fixed investment jumped by 343 percent.

The government aims to support the upward momentum of investments in eastern provinces in parallel with boosting efforts at the political stage.

The expectation that the government-initiated peace process will maintain stability in the region have sparked the lure of these eastern provinces in investor’s eye.