The FINANCIAL — The EBRD is boosting the Turkish shipping industry with a US$ 19.5 million loan to a local ship maintenance yard, Tersan Tersanecilik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş.
Tersan, whose line of business includes repairing ships and barges, currently owns two floating docks. It will use the EBRD financing to build a new dock in Yalova, a city on the eastern coast of the Marmara Sea. The new dock will replace a maintenance facility leased by the company until December 2016.
The dock will be able to cater for larger, Panamax-size vessels, which are able to fit through the old Panama Canal (the new canal is wider), and will be the third such dock in terms of technical and installed capacity in Turkey’s Yalova cluster. It will help the firm grow into a key player for maintaining ships, retrofitting them to run on liquefied natural gas as fuel and installing ballast water treatment technology. The investment is also expected to significantly increase the company’s repair activities, helping to meet the growing demand for such services in the region.
The vessel maintenance sector in Turkey is growing into a major industry as its shipbuilding and repair facilities become increasingly important in the region. Both local and European clients are looking for cost-effective ways to maintain ships, and Turkey offers some of the most competitive prices in terms of steel and labour, according to EBRD.
Sue Barrett, EBRD Director for Transport, said: “Tersan’s new floating dock, geographically located near the Marmara Sea, a very high traffic area for container and other types of vessels, will provide flexible and reliable repair services for both Turkish and European vessels. As Turkey is expanding its trade with Europe and industries are looking for competitive ship building and maintenance services, the new dock, a best in class, will bring a tailwind to the promising Turkish shipping industry.”
O. Nurettin Paksu, Chairman of the Board of Tersan Group, said: “Tersan’s new floating dock will be a milestone in our sector in terms of environmental compatibility and productivity, in addition to its valuable financial solution. The new investment will create employment opportunities, boost our repair activities and improve lives and the business environment in the region. I welcome our new partner – the EBRD – into the Turkish ship repair sector, and we are looking forward to working on this project together.”
Tersan is committed to introducing several state-of-the-art waste minimisation technologies, such as ultra-high-pressure hydroblasting, which is considered one of the most environmentally friendly cleaning techniques in the industry.
These measures will be co-financed with US$ 1.5 million under the EBRD’s Near Zero Waste Programme (NØW). The initiative, which was launched by the Bank in 2015 and is supported by the Clean Technology Fund and the European Union, finances innovative industrial processes aimed at minimising waste and increasing resource efficiency.
The EBRD’s investment will make Tersan more competitive domestically and abroad. Scaling up private sector competitiveness through innovation is among the EBRD’s priorities in Turkey.
The Bank is a leading investor in the country. It started investing in Turkey in 2009 and currently operates from offices in Istanbul, Ankara and Gaziantep. The country is a top destination for the Bank’s finance, with €1.9 billion invested in 2016 alone. To date, the Bank has invested over €9 billion in Turkey through more than 220 projects across many sectors and has mobilised nearly €20 billion for these ventures from other sources of financing. Some 98 per cent of the Bank’s investments in Turkey are in the private sector.
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