OSZs set employment record in the first century of the Republic

Emphasizing that despite all the challenging conditions in the economy and the earthquake, OSZs have maintained their appetite for investment, production, and employment, Kütükcü said, "In 2023, more than 1,500 new parcels in our OSZs were allocated to investors. Furthermore, with our OSZs providing employment to an additional 100 thousand people this year, total employment in our OSZs reached 2 million 577 thousand. Thus, we have completed the first century of our Republic with record employment."
Stating that the first OSZ in Turkey was established in Bursa in 1961, and that Turkey, with over 60 years of OSZ experience, has reached a point where it exports its OSZ expertise to the world, Kütükcü said, "In 2023, 16 new OSZs were established in Aksaray, Antalya, Amasya, Balıkesir, Çanakkale, Denizli, Kayseri, Kırklareli, Konya, Nevşehir, Osmaniye, Samsun, and Sakarya. Thus, our total number of OSZs reached 399, with 360 affiliated with our Ministry of Industry and Technology and 39 with our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The total number of factories in our OSZs has also exceeded 67 thousand," he said.

No province left without an OSZ

Stating that there is no province left in Turkey without an OSZ, Kütükcü said, "As organized industrial zones, we carry out 45 percent of Turkey's total industrial production. 600 of the 1000 Largest Industrial Enterprises in our country are producing in our organized industrial zones. In addition, the number of our companies exporting from our OSZs has exceeded 10 thousand. The exports carried out by these companies reached 64.5 billion dollars," he stated.

Recovery process continues in OSZs in the earthquake zone

In his statement, reminding that Turkey began 2023 with a major earthquake centered in Kahramanmaraş, and that OSZs and industrial production were also negatively affected by this earthquake, Kütükcü said, "We have 37 OSZs in the operational phase in our earthquake region. All of these OSZs and our industrialists were negatively affected by the earthquake. Industrial production in the region has not yet fully recovered, but the deep production losses that reached 50 percent in the first months of the earthquake have fallen to single-digit figures. In the first 11 months of this year, the electricity consumption of our OSZs in the earthquake zone, which is to say production, decreased by an average of 7.5 percent compared to the same period of the previous year," he said.
Kütükcü added that the priority demand of the organized industrial zones in the earthquake region is for urgent measures to be taken regarding the return of the workforce that left their cities.