Turkey’s port sector enjoys unparalleled growth as compared to its competitors
Turkey which is surrounded by seas on 3 sides has attributed great importance in developing its maritime sector in the last decade. To support this statement, it is reported that the Turkish port sector broke a record by exceeding 10 million TEUs in container shipping in 2017 and has also achieved an increase of 18 percent in the first quarter of 2018. The first quarter growth in global remained at 3 percent.
Based on same data it is observed that the amount of cargo handled at ports increased by 18 percent in the first quarter of 2018, which corresponds to a growth of 6 fold as compared to the global growth in the same period. On the other hand, it is also observed that the growth in transit increased to 30 percent in the first quarter.
When we look at the previous performance of the sector we see that the Turkish port sector broke a record in 2017 exceeding 10 million TEU which corresponds to an increase of 14.8 percent. In the first quarter of 2018 however, the sector managed to exceed 2.4 million TEU corresponding to a growth of 18 percent. It is forecasted that the growth in the global sector will not exceed the figure of 3 percent.
Consequently, this high performance of the sector is observed to have increased interest of foreign investors and new players are entering the market as well. It is a fact that the government, Ministry of Economy and TIM are all focused on how to improve and strengthen the sector on a global level and do not deny any support required to move in this direction. Nevertheless the developments in the economy after the vital deputy and presidential elections on 24 June 2018 are expected to determine the year-end performance of the sector.
Turkey’s volume of transit business in container shipping in the first quarter showed 30 percent increase. Experts comment that this performance is very likely to increase via some basic/simple steps to be taken by the authorities, such as reducing some bureaucratic procedure.
