Car sector sales stay stable, says Opel head

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

The head of Opel Turkey, Özcan Keklik, says despite Turkish automotive sector shrank in 2012, it will remain stable this year due to incentives. Hürriyet photo

The Turkish automotive sector contracted 10 percent last year, but is not anticipated to shrink any further in 2013 as recently introduced state incentives are predicted to contribute greatly toward the sector’s improvement, the head of Opel Turkey said yesterday.

“Turkey’s automobile and light vehicle market sales decreased around 777,000 with a 10 percent fall,” said Özcan Keklik. He noted that the automobile sales fell to 556,000 with a 6 percent decrease last year, as light commercial vehicles’ sales were 221,000 with an 18 percent decrease. Keklik claimed the automobile sector would this year show a similar performance as the previous year. Opel made up 9 percent of the private car market with a sale of more than 49,000 cars last year, he said.

However, Keklik also said Turkey ranked fifth in European automobile sales last year and ranked fourth last December, showing the sector’s sustainability and stability.

Incentives to up sector

He stressed that incentives recently introduced by the economy ministry in the automobile sector would contribute to the sector by increasing its investments and developments, as Turkey’s automobile sector aims to be a global player by 2023. The government is targeting $500 billion of total exports by 2023, $75 billion of them from the auto industry compared to $20 billion from the sector last year.

Turkey started to offer tax breaks of up to 60 percent and incentives such as deductions on employee costs in the interests of attracting investment to the automotive sector in a bid to grow the sector’s annual exports to $75 billion over the next decade.