Western boss calls on firms to go East

BURSA - Anatolia News Agency

Firms in the northwestern province of Borsa may use the eastern and eastern provinces as production bases, says business representative Parseker. AA photo

Businesses in the industrialized northwest of Bursa should gradually move their production to eastern and southeastern Turkey where the government offers large incentives, Bursa Chamber of Trade and Industry (BTSO) Assembly Chairman İlhan Parseker has said.

“Just like we were the production base for Europe in the past, the east and the southeast should become the production base for Bursa,” Parseker told Anatolia news agency.

Bursa is the heart of Turkey’s automotive industry and one of the leading textile-exporting cities in the country.

Parseker, who is also a board member of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges (TOBB), said a BTSO mission of 110 people visited the region in early October. Bursa businesses have long believed that the southeastern Anatolia region was not suitable for investments, he said. “We organized that trip to break this conception, support our people there, raise their morale, put an end to these prejudices and show that the region is somewhere to invest in with the new incentive program,” he said.

In its new incentive program which will begin this summer, the government will award the largest regional incentives to the eastern and southeastern Anatolia provinces to balance out their economic inequality with the west. “Bursa should change its fields of investments now,” Parkeser said, calling for more focus on innovation and technology, “because both costs are high in Bursa and investments are expensive.”