Turkey attracts over $600M in foreign investment in Jan

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

Turkey received $606 million in net international direct investment this January, the Economy Ministry announced Thursday.

In January, the amount of net foreign direct investment (FDI) fell 10.6 percent year-on-year, from $678 million in the same month last year.

In terms of equity investment -- the main component of overseas direct investment -- direct inflow to Turkey stood at $337 million, with 42 percent of this amount coming from the European Union.

Direct capital inflow from EU countries rose by 6 percent year-on-year, with the Netherlands, France, and Germany as the top three sources of equity investment.

"In January, $84 million of the total equity capital entry was in the financial intermediation sector," the ministry said, followed by the manufacturing sector with $77 million and the mining and quarrying sector with $70 million.

Official data showed that a total of 629 new foreign-backed companies were founded in Turkey -- including four branch offices -- while another six domestic companies benefited from overseas participants in the first month of the year.

A total of 416 of the foreign-backed companies were of Near and Middle Eastern countries, 87 were of EU countries, and 52 were of North African countries, the ministry said.

As of January, nearly 60,000 companies with international capital were operating in Turkey -- 37.5 percent of them linked to EU member states.

More than 22,500 of these companies are operating in the retail and wholesale trade sector. The other major sectors are real estate rental and business activities with 9,684 firms, and manufacturing with 7,064 companies.

Official figures also showed that the Economy Ministry issued 24 incentive certificates in January for investment projects of international investors.

The ministry said the investment value of these certified projects -- within the framework of FDI legislation and the incentives regime -- reached $483.6 million in January.

"Out of the total 24 investment incentive certificates, 17 were issued for manufacturing, five for the services sector, and two for mining and quarrying sector," the ministry added.

Last year, Turkey attracted $10.83 billion in net international direct investment, $7.44 billion of which was equity investment inflow, and 338 incentive certificates for projects valued at $24.4 billion were issued by the Economy Ministry.