Gov’t hands 1,200 investment incentive certificates in July

Hacer Boyacıoğlu - ANKARA

The Industry and Technology Ministry handed entrepreneurs 1,200 incentive certificates in July for investments in various sectors totaling 22.46 billion Turkish Liras ($3.06 billion).

“Investment appetite continued to rise in July. We have reached another peak point with the 1,200 incentive certificates issued. Investment demand in the first seven months is 28 percent higher compared to last year,” Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said in a tweet.

“In accordance with a change in the regional incentive scheme, we will further stimulate investments in the outer districts,” he added.

According to an infographic shared by the minister, 57 percent of the incentive certificates were granted to enterprise in the manufacturing sector. The energy sector’s share was 21 percent, whereas 14 percent of the incentives were promised to the service sector, 4 percent to agriculture and 4 percent to mining.

When the investments are actualized, they are expected to create over 33,000 jobs.

The ministry had given 859 investment incentive certificates, which granted value-added tax exemption and customs duty exemptions, other tax deductions, insurance premium supports and space assignments.

Hundred million facemasks

Many entrepreneurs applied to the ministry for incentives to produce protective and medical facemasks.

An enterprise in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ was granted 23.8 million liras ($3.2 million) in a plan to manufacture 800 million facemasks in a year.

Another firm in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak promised to produce 500 million facemasks, 81 million medical bonnets and three million medical suits in return for incentives worth 23 million liras ($3.1 million).

The modernization project of a synthetic and artificial fiber factory was granted incentives worth 347 million liras ($47.2 million).

A cotton yarn plant with a production capacity of 170,000 tons annually will get 306 million liras ($41.7 million) in incentives.

Several companies in the countryside, such as the Black Sea province of Samsun and the southeastern province of Batman, will also be given incentives to produce various products including mobile phones, bomb defusal robots and greenhouse bananas.

After a difficult period of April due to the pandemic, the Turkish industrial recovery accelerated in the last three months.

Turkey’s industrial output in June rose 0.1 percent from the same month last year and 17.6 percent month on month, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

On a monthly basis, the capacity utilization rate of the manufacturing sector rose 4.7 percent in July and 2.6 percent in August, the Central Bank data shows.