Companies enjoy profit boom at larger facilities

ISTANBUL

Many businesses in Turkey have the largest plants of their kind in Europe or the world as they vigorously invest in bigger plants to exploit the cost advantages of economies of scale.

Turkish companies ranging from glass producers to ice cream makers have increased their turnover and export volumes thanks to vast production facilities that give them a competitive edge against their global rivals, according to research by local Ekonomist magazine.

Vestel City, owned by Zorlu Holding, is the largest industrial complex running in a single area in Europe and the second largest in the world. It has been in operation since 2003 in the western province of Manisa, manufacturing household appliances and electronics on a 600,000 square-meter closed space.

Moving forward on school project

The company has recently placed a bid for the government’s FATİH project, which aims to develop computerized education via tablets and SMART boards. The tender was opened to procure 49,000 tablets, as Vestel had previously won the project’s SMART board bid. They are reported to have placed the lowest bid for the tablets.

Another example is Şişecam, which has reached 500,000 tons of capacity with four glass packaging furnaces. The company has the largest glass production complex in the world with a total of 1 million tons in a single area at its facilities in Yenişehir, a district in the northwestern province of Bursa.

Europe’s largest steel and heating boiler plant is also in Turkey. Baymak’s 35,000 square meter facility has a capacity of 400,000 combi boilers.

Global ice cream maker Algida’s largest production unit is in Çorlu, the industrial district of the western province Tekirdağ. It churns out more than 1 billion units of ice cream a year and has a 190 million-liter production capacity.