Incentives for International Investors
Turkey has been restructuring its economy since 1980 along the lines of a more liberal economic policy. In this context, more emphasis is being placed on private sector especially in productive sectors of economy and the role of State is limited to infrastructure development and the provision of public services.
The new economic policy aims to diminish unemployment, to realize technology transfers, to privatize State Economic Enterprises, to overcome the deficit in the balance of payments and especially to increase the integration of the economy with the world economy and to attract more foreign capital to the Country. Turkey also uses the option of fiscal incentives to channelize domestic and foreign investments for industrial development and rural-urban integration.
Investment Incentive Regime
The Turkish Government has been generous in 2016 and introduced two new incentive packages (“centre of attraction” and “super incentives” which provide comprehensive support to the qualified investments.
The “centre of attraction” programme aims to balance the development level within the regions through increase in employment, production and exports whereas “super incentives” aim to meet any critically important current or future requirements of Turkey, develop technologic capacity in the fields that technologically Turkey fall behind, reduce dependency on imports/ foreign sources, improve Turkey’s competitive power and support R&D focused investments.
Classification of investments
General investments: The investments that are not qualified as a special type of investment are subject to general incentives. These incentives are customs duty and VAT exemption on the purchase of investment goods (i.e. machinery and equipment). For the investments in the 6th region, the general incentives are expanded with income withholding tax. Social security employer premium relief is added to the ship construction investments in the shipyards.
Regional and sector-based investments: Turkey is separated into six regions based on the development level of the districts/cities in these regions. The first three zones represent more developed regions, respectively, whereas the last three show relatively less developed zones in Turkey.
Large scale investments: Investments in excess of at least TL50 million are classified as large scale investments. This amount can increase depending on the industry of the investment. The industries include but not limited with production of oil products, port and port services investments, drug manufacturing, production of air and space vehicles and their parts and airport investments.
