World’s construction powerhouse ready to enter SL on large scale

 As its bilateral trade with Sri Lanka topped $ 191 million with strong signs of renewed trade, Turkey, globally renowned for its construction dominance and predicted to be the fast grower in the industry by 2020, is preparing to enter the Sri Lankan construction sector in a big way.

“Turkey has one of the largest construction industries in the world. It is also ranked second after China in terms of having the largest construction companies of the world. The share of the construction sector in the Turkish economy is almost 30%,” revealed İskender K. Okyay, Ambassador of Turkey to Sri Lanka on 9 February. Okyay stated this to Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce on during his courtesy call on the latter in Colombo.  “Our infrastructure development is given high priority in Sri Lanka’s new growth phase under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa,” responded Bathiudeen and added: “We are highly encouraged by Turkey’s entry to our construction sector. We invite Turkish expertise and draw your attention especially to our tourism infrastructure, the requirements are from boutique to star class. We are currently on a drive to complete 40,000 additional hotel rooms to cater to rapidly rising tourist numbers.”

 “We are ready to partner with Sri Lankan infrastructure projects considerably. To this end, about 25 large construction firms in Turkey are already looking to enter Sri Lanka and expressed their interest. As a first step, they want to form a Turkey-Sri Lanka Economic Council in Istanbul,” added Okyay, who previously served as Minister-Counsellor in Berlin (2010-13) after serving as the Head of Department of Economic Affairs (Eastern Europe) with the Turkish Foreign Ministry (2009-10).  “We are experts in construction of roads, buildings and pipelines, including fuel and gas,” Okyay added. Also, in strong signs of renewal of trade cooperation between the historic trade partners, both Minister Bathiudeen and Okyay discussed tourism cooperation, and more importantly, the future direction of bilateral trade and cooperation, and to this end delved on matters related to the groundwork required for the first session of the Sri Lanka-Turkey Joint Committee to be held in Turkey in the first half of 2013 (the exact dates of which are to be mutually agreed upon). According to the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka, a large untapped market exists in Turkey for sweet biscuits, tobacco glass bottles, cargo vessels, tea extracts (ready to drink tea), diamonds, cloves, and animal feed preparations, among others.  The value of total trade turnover has increased from US$ 97.4 million in 2005 to US$ 190.57 million in 2012 – a massive increase of 95.66% compared to 2005. The balance of trade has been in favour of Sri Lanka during last eight years, which has increased from US$ 14.7 million in 2005 to US$ 88.39 million in 2012. Turkish Airlines, Turkey’s flagship carrier, began serving the Colombo-Istanbul route early this month.