Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır came to Sakarya to participate in a series of programs. Minister Kacır first visited a factory in Adapazarı district, and then visited Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Yusuf Alemdar at the municipality. Within the scope of the Sakarya program, Kacır went to the AK Party Kocaeli Provincial Headquarters and met with the party members there. Later, Minister Kacır attended the 21st General Assembly of the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) Sakarya, held in a hotel in Erenler district, and made statements there.
‘WE ARE BUILDING THE TURKISH INDUSTRY TOGETHER’
In addition to Kacır, Sakarya Governor Rahmi Doğan, AK Party Deputy Chairman Ali İhsan Yavuz, Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Yusuf Alemdar, MÜSİAD Chairman Mahmut Asmalı, Sakarya Branch Chairman İsmail Filizfidanoğlu and members attended the general assembly. Addressing industrialists, Minister Kacır said, “Together, we are building a Turkish industry that rises on 3 main pillars: value-added production, green and digital transformation. We are step by step introducing new incentive mechanisms that focus on the sustainability and competitiveness of our industry. ‘Turkey’, which we carry out in cooperation with the World Bank We offer more than 700 million dollars of financing to our industrialists, SMEs and green technology initiatives with the ‘Green Industry Project’ and ‘Turkey Organized Industrial Zones Project’. “We designed the ‘Turkey Industry Decarbonization Investment Platform’ in cooperation with the Development Bank and the Bank, and reached an agreement with international financial institutions to provide 5 billion euros of financing for green transformation investments until 2030,” he said.
‘WE WILL INCREASE THE NUMBER OF THESE EXAMPLE FACILITIES TO 15’
Referring to model factories, Minister Kacır said, “In order to realize the transformation of our workforce, we bring together our industrialists and workers with lean production and digital transformation through our model factories. With 5 new model factories, the installation of which is ongoing, we will increase the number of these model facilities to 15 and we will strongly adapt our industry to the digital age. This model Hopefully, we will bring one of the factories to Sakarya. Again, in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, we will provide 300 million euros of financing support for the digital transformation of our SMEs. We are constantly updating our support instruments, which will increase the competitiveness of our industry and ensure continuous high-tech and value-added production, in accordance with the needs and conditions of our industrialists. We offer support from R&D to mass production for high technology investments. “We have mobilized an investment of 109 billion lira with 166 projects in the fields of mobility, structural transformation in production, health and chemical products and digital transformation,” he said.
‘OUR MOST IMPORTANT DUTY IS TO REMOVE ALL OBSTACLES THAT WILL STOP THE SPEED OF OUR INDUSTRIALISTS’
Stating that they have come to the point of bringing investments with a total size exceeding 7 billion dollars to the country, Minister Kacır said, “With our ‘HIT-30 High Technology Investment Program’, which was announced by our President just 5 months ago, a total size of 7 billion dollars will be made in strategic areas such as electric vehicles, solar cells and wind turbines in a very short time. We have come to the point of bringing investments in excess of USD to our country. In the Turkish century, we will continue to strengthen our industry and production infrastructure by feeding it with added value and high technology, ensuring that our country is among the world’s leading technology production centers. “We will provide it together. Our most important duty is to eliminate all obstacles that will slow down our industrialists towards this goal,” he said.
‘1507 OUR INDUSTRIALISTS MADE ALLOCATION APPLICATIONS FOR 656 INVESTMENT PLACES WITH A SIZE OF 7 MILLION 100 THOUSAND SQUARE METERS’
Speaking about Organized Industrial Zones (OIZs), Minister Kacır said, “We carry out the pre-allocation application that we designed to obtain the resources needed for urgent expropriations and infrastructure construction in our newly established OIZs, within the framework of the same rules. In the first 3 months of the applications, 2, 160 industrialists have been pre-allocated for an area of 3 million square meters, and 1507 industrialists have been allocated for 656 investment places with an area of 7 million 100 thousand square meters in our 122 OIZs. Our industrialists applied for allocation. In our fourth month, we opened 913 investment sites with a total area of 14 million 625 thousand square meters in 96 OIZs to allocation applications, and nearly 6 million square meters of land in 15 OIZs to pre-allocation applications, as well as new OIZ installations and expansion areas. “We have ensured that 15 percent of the area is allocated for strategic investments, and we now allow the creation of social areas and residential areas for our employees in OIZs.” gave.
‘THE TARGET OF THIS APPLICATION IS TO PROTECT OUR PRODUCERS’
Stating that they have taken strict measures against unauthorized transfers in OIZs, Kacır said, “We have taken strict measures against unauthorized transfers in OIZs in order to bring together participants who aim to make industrial production and industrial parcels within the OIZ. The land allocation periods have expired but the allocation has not been canceled yet by the relevant OIZ.” We have provided the participants with a one-time extension of up to 3 years to complete their investment processes. In order to benefit from this right, the participants in the OIZ must be 31 years old at the latest. He must apply to our ministry by January and make a certain payment, depending on the stage of the investments. I would like to clarify especially about these payments. According to our new regulation, the first 6 months are free of charge, and the current land value for each month after 6 months is not paid; We will apply this fee as 5 per thousand for those who do not have a building permit, 1 per thousand for those who have a building permit but do not have a building occupancy permit, and 5 per 10 thousand for those who have a building occupancy permit but do not have a business license. We will use these resources for our industrial infrastructure, production ecosystem and OIZs. The aim of this application is to protect our producing industrialists. We want the legal processes and permits to be completed in the places in question. “Let the wheels turn as soon as possible, or our industrial areas should be made available to our industrialists aiming for production and exports,” he said.
‘WE HAVE TAKEN MANY PRECAUTIONS TO PREVENT INVESTMENTS LOOSING MOMENTUM’
Referring to investments, Minister Kacır continued his words with the following statements;
“We inevitably feel the effects of the hot conflicts in our region, the financial toll of the February 6 earthquakes and the stormy period that the global economy is going through. Our economic program, which prioritizes price stability in line with the Medium Term Program, has of course repercussions on the growth of the domestic market, but the disinflation process will support healthy and sustainable growth in the long term. In the new period in which we prioritize price stability, we took many measures to ensure that investments do not lose momentum. Last week, we also implemented 2 important programs with our public banks that will strengthen the contribution of our SMEs to our economy and value chain. Our focus in the ‘Global Competitiveness Support Program’ is to increase the effectiveness of our SMEs in global markets by using new technologies efficiently and to achieve successful export and R&D performance by operating in medium-high or high technology fields. We provide 20 points of non-refundable financing support to our startups that are included in the Turcorn 100 Program, with a limit of 50 million liras and a maturity of up to 36 months.
With the ‘Capacity Development Support Program’, which will accelerate the capacity expansion investments of our SMEs, we will provide non-refundable support of up to 20 points for financing with an upper limit of 20 million liras and a maturity of up to 36 months. Our SMEs in the manufacturing, telecommunications, computer programming, information service activities and scientific research and development activities sectors will be able to apply to this program. We continue to take many measures in coordination with all our institutions to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of production and exports. In order to facilitate our exporters’ access to financing, we quadrupled the capital of Türk Eximbank to 55.3 billion lira in the last year and a half. In 2024, 48.7 billion dollars of support was provided to exporters by Eximbank. Our Central Bank also increased the limit of daily rediscount loans from 300 million lira to 4 billion lira in May 2023. Last year, it provided 573 billion lira of rediscount loans. Moreover; “Our Central Bank has made a significant change in the required reserve application based on credit growth, which it has implemented in order to ensure that credit growth and composition are compatible with the disinflation policy.”
‘WE ARE STARTING AN EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION PROGRAM THIS MONTH WITH THE HANDS OF KOSGEB’
Referring to new projects, Minister Kacır said, “Of course, we want to take more steps together. New projects that will minimize the possible challenging effect of our economic program on employment-intensive sectors are also at the top of our agenda. Apparel, which employs more than 1 million 200 thousand employees, In order to protect production and employment in the textile, leather and furniture sectors, we are launching the ‘Employment Protection Program’ this month with the help of KOSGEB for our SMEs that maintain the workforce level of last year. We will make support payments of up to 2,500 liras per month. We have reached the end of our efforts for a comprehensive revision of our incentive system. We will offer attractive selective and program-based supports to investors with our new incentive model, which strongly aligns our incentive mechanisms with the long-term goals of our country. “We are making important changes that will increase the selectivity, local focus and support effectiveness of our incentive system,” he said.
Source: www.star.com.tr
