Minister Kacır: Strict Measures Against Unauthorized Transfer and Lease in Organized Industrial Zones

Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır said, “We will take much stricter measures against unauthorized transfer or rental transactions aimed at generating real estate income in OIZs.”

Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır met with business people at the Samsun Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The meeting was attended by Samsun Governor Orhan Tavlı, AK Party Deputy Chairman Responsible for Environment, City and Culture and Samsun Deputy Çiğdem Karaaslan, TBMM Planning and Budget Commission Chairman AK Party Deputy Mehmet Muş, AK Party Samsun Deputy Ersan Aksu, Samsun Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Halit Doğan, Samsun Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Salih Zeki Murzioğlu, AK Party Provincial Chairman Mehmet Köse, district mayors, OMÜ Rector Prof. Dr. Yavuz Ünal and business people.

Speaking about the Medium Term Program announced by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, Minister Kacır said, “Samsun is a city that has a very important and valuable place in our industrial and technological roadmap in the upcoming period. We hope that just as Gaziantep in our Southeastern Anatolia region and Mersin in our Mediterranean region lead the development of the region as locomotive cities with their role as producing cities, Samsun will assume this role here in the upcoming period, both as the gateway of Central Anatolia to the Black Sea and as the pioneer city of the entire Black Sea region, especially with the new organized industrial zones we have established. Hopefully, in the upcoming period, we will try to accelerate the large-scale investments of both Turkish and international investors in the organized industrial zones, the number of which we have increased to 10. We stopped by Havza OSB before coming here. We aim to turn it into a giant organized industrial zone of 10 million square meters in the upcoming period.”

OSB REGULATION CHANGE

Minister Kacır, who stated that they published an amendment to the OIZ regulation today, said, “We have actually shared the reformative amendments with the public. Our goal is to accelerate the allocation of industrial areas to investors in the upcoming period, and we have made arrangements that will enable organized industrial zones to develop resources through pre-allocation. In this way, we aim to complete the expropriation and infrastructure construction processes more quickly. In particular, we will ensure that all industrial area inventory that has not yet been allocated in all OIZs in Turkey will be made available online to industrialists on the first Monday of each month. In this way, we will be instrumental in accelerating industrial investments in all OIZs in Turkey in the upcoming period.”

Minister Kacır continued his speech by saying, “We also require our OIZ managements to announce the allocation conditions in OIZs to all investors with a sense of transparency,” and continued as follows:

“With today’s regulation change, we have paved the way for the establishment of housing areas for employees working in OIZs. Again, we foresee the establishment of reserve areas for strategic investments in the establishment and expansion processes of organized industrial zones within the scope of the regulation change. We will take much stricter measures regarding unauthorized transfer or rental transactions for the purpose of generating real estate income in OIZs and we will never allow them. Again, with the regulation change, we have taken additional measures regarding compliance with the defined periods for the realization of investments in allocated areas. Hopefully, in the coming period, the number of our organized industrial zones has reached 360, and today, we have 45 industrial zones in Turkey. We will continue to be the locomotive of Turkey’s production power.”

Minister Kacır, who stated that Samsun will have stronger high value-added industrial investments in the coming period, said, “In the coming period, especially in high value-added areas such as the automotive industry, machinery industry, defense industry and in areas such as medical device production, where Samsun is a leader worldwide, we will make much more effort to increase the current export level to 3-4 times in order for both international and Turkish investments to come to life more quickly in Samsun and for Samsun to maintain its identity as the center of attraction of this region more strongly in the coming period. Samsun is a very beautiful city. As you know, we also organized Teknofest here and now Samsun is one of the top 5 cities in Turkey that has the highest participation in Teknofest competitions. I believe that with the Teknofest generation and Teknofest youth, high value-added industrial investments will rise more strongly in Samsun in the coming period.”