Turkey to Finalize $25 Billion Overseas Contracts in Construction Sector in 2009

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In 2009, Turkey's construction sector will finalize overseas contracts worth about $25 billion, said Erdal Eren, Chairman of the Turkish Contractors Association. Eren said he hopes that the sector will have a business volume worth about $40 billion from 2010 onward. Although this year's expected business volume is almost equal to that of 2008, the third quarter of 2008 saw a fall of about 4.3% because of the global economic crisis. Eren said he hopes that overseas business deals this year will lessen the impact of the crisis.

Turkish firms have had to look for business opportunities overseas as thousands of new urban homes built during the boom years are still waiting to be sold. However, once interest rates drop and the mortgage market takes off, the real estate sector is expected to flourish once again. Meanwhile, cost-efficient proposals and aggressive business strategies have given a rapid push to the entry and growth of Turkish firms in markets such as those of Algeria, Libya, Russia, and the gulf countries. In 2008, Turkish firms won overseas projects worth about $24.6 billion, a huge increase from the $1.2 billion in projects in 2002. In the near future, Turkish firms also expect to take a large share in the $500 billion and $160 billion public infrastructure projects in India and Libya, respectively. Eren said that without sufficient public infrastructure investments from the government, Turkey's domestic construction sector is expected to remain weak.

At a conference organized to promote bilateral trade between Turkey and Iran, Iran's Minister of Commerce Seyyed Masoud Mirkazemi announced that the two nations are expected to have a bilateral trade volume worth $20 billion per year beginning in 2011. The current volume of trade between the countries stands at $10 billion. After the conference, Kursad Tuzmen, Turkey's Minister of State for Foreign Trade, said the country is willing to cooperate with Iran to build Iran's first commercial hotel in Mashad in Khorasan Razavi province. Tuzmen said Turkish engineers have the experience of building several hospitals, trade centers and commercial hotels. He said bilateral trade between Iran and Turkey had shown a growth of 30% over the first 11 months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Mirkazemi said that boosting bilateral ties between the nations was of utmost importance for Iran. The countries have already signed memorandums of understanding in the fields of trade, transportation and customs. He added that Iran had already approved the D-8 preferential trade agreement and said he hoped that Turkey would sign it soon and effectively strengthen economic ties between the nations.

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