Intermodal

Logistic platform, agricultural industry and tourism arise as strategic development lines in Turkey.

During a visit organized in Mersin* on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey, the ICE Office of Istanbul had the opportunity - together with Italian Ambassador in Ankara, the Economic and Commercial Counselor and the Italian Consul in Izmir - to learn, in a series of meetings with entrepreneurs and local authorities, the development of guidelines which will build the economic and social growth of operable. The Governor, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Maritime Chamber, have indicated the three strategic directions of Mersin in the economy: agro-industry / agriculture, tourism and logistics platform; about these three lines of development the central government and local entrepreneurs, with the desirable inputs of foreign capital will apply concretely in the coming years. With regard to food and agriculture sector and agriculture, tradition sees the province of Mersin as a flat production of citrus fruits and vegetables among the most important of the Mediterranean, but in recent years has spread a related field among the most relevant and profitable in the country. Noteworthy in this field there are the opportunities for Italian companies interested in investing in that area, autonomous or in partnership with local businesses; however the flow of Italian exports of machines for packing / packaging machinery and food is consistent. Note also that in Mersin there is one of the main operational “Free Trade Zone” of Turkey, MESBAS It stretches over an area of over 786,000 m2 with access the port and its piers for berthing (in the present are currently 336 companies, of which 93 foreign). In the tourism sector more opportunities there are for sea-currently almost entirely absent-and cultural / religious, because a few km away from Mersin c ‘is Tarsus, hometown of St. Paul. It’ scheduled here over the construction of 10,000 residential units and 2 golf courses, eight predefined areas. With regard to the project related to the “Platform Logistics” they are actually working the Maritime Chamber and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Mersin, there has stressed that an important background to this development director there ‘the port of Mersin (Mersin International Port - MIP), acquired last year - during the privatisation process-by PSA in Singapore in Joint-Venture with the local society Akfen for 750 million dollars, which have added approximately 200 million investment for the modernization and restructuring of infrastructure; PSA and Akfen manage the port for 36 years. The logistics platform-for now under study-abroad should receive contributions in both phases of analysis and study, which then operational. From October 14 to 17 will be held in Mersin Fair of Logistics and Transport. Representatives of the Maritime Chamber have mentioned already made contacts with Barcelona, Antwerp and Hamburg, while in Italy would like to know more operational realities of logistics platforms in the north.

850,000 inhabitants, a vocation essentially agricultural and agri-food and textile today, and with a port among the most important of the southern Mediterranean, which serves as a logistical base for the whole of central Anatolia (p. eS. Konya, Kayseri, southern Turkey and northern Iraq).