“The Turkish automotive sector has achieved historical high of production with the number of nearly 1,7 million units” Cengiz Eroldu, CEO of Tofas
Cengiz Eroldu, CEO of Tofas, assessing the year 2017 and said “I think the sector has performed a steady performance. The domestic automotive market is closing nearly with the number of 1 million units paralleling last year’s level. I find this volume – to which the market reached – noteworthy regarding putting forward of the Turkish automotive market potential.
Highlighting both production and exports of the automotive sector had continued, Eroldu recorded; “The Turkish automotive sector has achieved historical high of production with the number of 1,7 million units. The growth is also seen in the sector exports the similar with last year. According to the expectation of the Turkish Automotive Manufacturers Association (OSD), the sector exports would become worth $28,5 billion for the year 2017. In addition to units based exports, the Turkish automotive industry has become home for the models which compete in the world markets.”
Indicating they as Tofas, had sustained its position as a leading establishments of the sector in 2017, he continued; “In the production, as we have accomplished the number of 5,5 million vehicles in the production since the beginning to date, last July we exported our 2,5 millionth vehicle. We achieved 20 percent of the total sector exports via our Egea project which we have commissioned nearly two years ago with the investment worth $1 billion being demanded from both the home and market abroad and we also maintained our production leadership during the year with ongoing successful performance of Doblo and Fiorino.”
About the domestic market sales, he said, “We foresee the sales number about 120 thousand with Fiat, Fiat Professional, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, Ferrari and Maserati brands. We feel a great pleasing regarding Fiat Egea sustaining its most preferred automobile feature. As for another issue, we give importance to our sales performance from the domestic production. 90 percent of our sales in the domestic market composed of the vehicles we manufacture at our plant that we have been leading position in this field in the sector. R & D studies were on our focus in 2017 as well. Our patent number showed 400 percent rise in last 3 years. In the row of Joint Research Center under the roof of European Commission, we rank at first line from Turkey for the consecutive 3 years due to our investments made in R & D.”
2018 General Outlook
“In 2018, slightly setback can happen in the domestic market. But I believe the market has settled on 950 thousand – 1 million levels and this level approximately would be kept. As for production and exports, I think, we will accomplish the same performance with last year in 2018. In conclusion, the Turkish automotive industry will maintain featuring the locomotive of the Turkish economy in 2018 too. As Tofas, we aim to boost our performance in 2018 over previous year,” Eroldu concluded.
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