At the same time, APM Terminal’s Turkey chief Mogens Wolf Larsen also requested that Turkish authorities ease bureaucratic processes for foreign investors by launching a special agency to help them.
The Hague-based APM Terminals and Petkim, owned by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR, are together investing more than $400 million in the APM port in the Aliağa district of İzmir, which will have an annual container handling capacity of 1.3 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, making it the largest of its kind in the Aegean region, when it is completed.
“We have been looking for new investments in Turkey because it is a very interesting market for us. The fundamentals of the Turkish market with the respect of population growth, the share of the young population, the growth pace of the Turkish GDP and Turkey’s geographical location as a potential hub for Central Asia make Turkey very interesting for us and for our industry. We want to invest more in Turkey in this vein,” Larsen, also APM Terminal İzmir’s managing director, said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News on Oct. 26, one day before the ninth Investment Advisory Council Meeting in Istanbul.
The ninth Investment Advisory Council Meeting was organized by the Turkish government with the attendance of the top chiefs from 21 large global companies to discuss suggestions about what Turkey can do to lure more investment and hear what Ankara can offer.
Larsen said they had mainly been looking for opportunities in three regions in Turkey.
“We are very much interested in the whole Sea of Marmara. On the European side, Ambarlı for instance, and another in İzmit Bay. We are in dialogue with most of the current port operators and also with the potential promoters of new projects. We are also interested in the Mediterranean side of Turkey, somewhere from Mersin to İskenderun. İzmir, where we are today, Istanbul and the Mediterranean side are the places we want to invest more in,” he said, adding that their position in Turkey was long-term.
Asked whether they had made any changes in their investment plans due to increased uncertainty in Turkey, including the failed coup attempt, Larsen said they did not.
“The type of our investments are long-term infrastructure investments,” he said. “And we say that for the next 30-40 years at least, Turkey is the right place to be.”