Two Turkish cities race for car test plant

ISTANBUL

Two Turkish automotive cities, Bursa and Sakarya, have locked horns over which one should host the Automotive Test Center soon to be established in Turkey.

Turkey is set to build a center within its borders to test produced cars, in order to eliminate high amounts of money spent to send cars to Europe, but the whereabouts of this facility has pit its two major industrial cities against each other, daily Dünya reported.

The plant, which is estimated to cost around 120 million euros, was initially planned to be built in Bursa, where a majority of automotive key industrial production facilities are located, including Renault, Tofaş and Karsan. However, Sakarya, where the production facilities of Hyundai, Toyota and Honda, has emerged as another choice of area. The Sakarya industrialists joined forces to promote their city to host the center, basing their claim to a recent Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) report. Bursa businessmen argue that there is a problem with the land in Yenişehir.

Turkish carmakers annually pay around $36 million to foreign companies to conduct such crucial tests.