|
Founded near the Antalya Port area at 12 km from Antalya downtown and 25 km from the airport on an area of 607,130 square meters, the Antalya Free Zone entered into service on the 14th of November, 1987. The financing of the land and infrastructure was met by the State, the superstructure was developed by the investing companies and the management of the Antalya Free Trade Zone was handed over to the private sector with the Decision of the Council of Ministers. Thus, ASBAŞ, Antalya Free Zone Operator Company was founded (36 % of its shares are public owned and 64 % are private owned). With its completed electricity, water, telecommunication and waste water treatment facilities, roads and green areas, the Zone can compete with fully-developed free zones. Furthermore, in 1998 a port entered into service for the loading-unloading services in the Free Zone, which constitutes an extra advantage for it. Moreover, since February 2000, trade is also realized in the Zone from the Antalya harbor via containers. In the Zone, the total space allocated for investments is 433,985 square meters. By the end June 2007, over 96 % of this area is already leased and operated by entrepreneurs.
98 firms are currently operating in the Zone and 3,500 persons are being employed. The State has spent approximately 11.5 million USD on the Zone's infrastructure and further development expenses since then. Turkish and foreign entrepreneurs have spent over 70 million USD on superstructure (buildings, machines and equipment), foreign investors accounting for 30 percent.
When we take a look at the trade figures of Antalya Free Zone we observe ;
(*)The trade volume is two months The total trade volume for the year 2007 is about 545.5 million USD. This means an decrease about 1% compared with the year 2006. On the other hand, since the establishment of the zone, the earning of the State exceeded 30 million Dollars through the facilities of the zone. The Antalya Free Zone was first planned as a machinery parking at the service of the foreign contracting firms. The activities of purchasing and selling were also important in this “Free Trade Zone”. But during the last three or four years, the manufacturing activity has expanded rapidly. Thus, the Zone has started to become a Processing Free Zone. In addition to the manufacturing of cable, production of yatchs, textile, confection and electronic goods, high technology manufacture such as dialysis machines and tissue culture have now started in the Zone. Those are all productions that need the use of a high technology. Compared with the other free zones active in our country, the Antalya Free Zone is at the fourth place after the Istanbul Free Zone, the Aegean Free Zone and the Mersin Free Zone in what concerns its employment volume, the number of its production units and the created added value. As a conclusion, in spite of the partial negativity lived at the beginning, we observe that the Antalya Free Zone grows even stronger each passing year and continues its relative development trend. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Antalya Free Zone
