Turkey pursues centre-stage role
Written by Writer on Saturday, October 25th, 2008
Turkey pursues centre-stage role
The country long known as the bridge between Asia and Europe is working to offer comprehensive modern logistics infrastructure.
Nareerat Wiriyapong in Mersin, Turkey
Despite the gloomy outlook for global trade, the growth of China and other Asian economies should help to further expand flows of goods between Asia and Europe, with Turkey positioning itself as a vital transit hub.
Turkey has emerged as a crucial transit and hub country, says Mr Tuzmen.
Turkey for centuries has touted its pivotal role as the place where Asia and Europe meet, and with Asia now seen as the major driver of the world’s sputtering economy, that role could be enhanced.
Given its strategic location, Turkey attracts foreign trade exceeding $300 billion with capital inflows of $22 billion per year.
The country is also considered well-equipped with logistics infrastructure, especially seaports and railways. The logistics sector, which has developed in line with Turkey’s foreign trade, has business volume of $15 billion with approximately 220 companies active. With a road transport fleet of more than 40,000 vehicles and investments of about $5 billion, the sector creates employment for 400,000 people.
Turkish policymakers a year ago endorsed a policy to turn Mersin, the southern port town on the Mediterranean Sea, into an international logistics centre. Together with its seaport, Mersin has other facilities including a customs free zone and trucking facilities, to serve transshipments of goods from Europe, the Middle East and former Soviet states.
Addressing the recent Conference on Foreign Trade Logistics in Mersin, Kursad Tuzmen, Turkey’s minister of State for foreign trade, said the growth of good flows between Asia and Europe had created the need to identify new transport routes.
Turkey, as one of the main economic actors of the Middle East and Eurasia, has consequently emerged as a crucial transit and hub country, he said.
Privatised in May 2007, the Mersin seaport is the largest seaport in Turkey in terms of total dock length, maximum depth, and container stocking capacity. Covering one million square metres, the facility handled more than 17 million tonnes of cargo last year.
The logistics conference, held from Oct 14-15, is the largest event of its kind and was attended by nearly 150 companies worldwide.
The Mersin Free Zone, the first of its kind in Turkey with its own pier, covers 786,000 square metres, creating trade volume of $2.5 billion in 2007.
However, observers have suggested more work needs to be done to make Mersin a major hub. Further developments of necessary infrastructure as well as integration between the port and other modes of transport are needed.
“Turkey geographically is potentially very important for a global role but the country has not placed itself to live up to the potential opportunity to be the link of three continents,” said Jack Short, secretary-general of the international transport forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
As well, he recommended the Turkish government further open up the economy to draw investments from abroad to develop the sector during the current global economic meltdown.
“Turkey has been doing well to open the economy in general but it needs to keep going with liberalising the market to cope with the financial crisis,” he said. “Railway expansion, integration and many other things are required to be done here on economic front.”
Mr Short was among the delegates attending a logistics conference held from Oct 14-15. The fair, covering 9,000 square metres, is the largest event of its kind and had nearly 150 companies including representatives from Afghanistan, Albania, Croatia, the Philippines, Lebanon, Hungary, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Morocco.
Monica Alina Mustra, a World Bank co-ordinator, also suggested Turkey needed to pursue liberalisation of trucking and warehousing businesses while improving border agency co-ordination.
“For logistics, predictability and reliability are very crucial and as important as cost and speed,” she said.
Barry Cable, director of the transport and tourism division at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN Escap), recommended that Turkey go multimodal by creating synergies among road, rail, and maritime modes to extend the logistics chain.
The top container ports of the world are located in Asia but developments are concentrated only in coastal areas.
For countries such as Turkey, the opportunity is there to develop inland ports and terminals with packaging and custom facilities, Mr Cable acknowledged.
He also cited the need for better inter-regional connectivity to move goods beyond the Asian region.
“Turkey has a strategic location as a bridge between Asia, Europe and the Middle East,” he said. “But just a regional connection is not enough. The country also needs integration.”
Halim Mete, vice-president of the Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, agreed that his country’s advantages needed sharpening, including the construction of more highways. “Legal infrastructure and border customs procedures need to be modernised. For example, international agreements should be revised to solve visa-related problems,” Mr Mete said.
Bangkok Post
Saturday October 25, 2008
