According to information collected by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Turkey and recently published by theNorth West Euro-Mediterranean Institute, the country has received 480 investment project proposals worth $3,2 billion since the introduction of the new government incentive package aimed at promoting and attracting productive investments, which came into force in summer 2012, covering investments retroactively from 1 January of the same year. 340 of these projects were approved, creating over 16000 new jobs.
Il new program of investment incentives was specifically designed to encourage investment in order to reduce the dependence on imports of semi-finished products essential for the country's strategic sectors. Among the primary objectives of the new investment incentive program are, in fact, reducing the current account deficit, increasing investment to support less developed regions, increasing the level of support instruments, promoting aggregation activities and supporting technology transfer. The new system of investment incentives includes then four different programs: two programs, one national and one regional, investment incentives, a large-scale investment incentives program and a strategic investment incentives programme. 3,8% of the projects are connected to investments in agriculture, 9,1% in the mining sector, 56,8% in production, 2,9% in the energy sector and 27,4% in services. Considering the sub-sectors, textiles and clothing are in first place by number of investments, with a share of the total of 19% and 21% in terms of employed persons. This is followed by investments in the food and alcohol industries, in mining, tourism, tires and plastics, infrastructure, training and machinery.
