Dear People, please accept my respect and greetings. It is my wish from Dear Allah to bring in goodness to our region in supporting our actions to develop our region and build employment.

Serving people is serving God, this is our main philosophy and necessity of our belief. We continue our work with this in mind. 

-As a united assembly, we decided to serve our people until our power and knowledge are sufficient. We created commissions to server better (KOSGEB, R&D, Press and Member Services) 

– Our work continues to promote our region 

– The organised industry area in which we participate is at a certain stage of development and our factories are emerging 

– We pioneered in creation of consultation assembly of non-governmental organisations that are important for our region and our work is still in progress- Our KOSGEB commission is working hard to serve our SMO’s individually 

– We organize business trips abroad 

– We are informing our members fast by using different communication tools 

– We support the students in need at our schools 

– Tavşanlı Chamber of Commerce and Industry has acquired a respectful position both locally and globally  

     We ask our people to support us and pray for our region to develop. 

       Let Allah’s mercy and blessing be with you. 

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An interview with Davut Efe (Chairman of TCCI)

– Can you tell us about Tavşanlı shortly? For example, what about its location, transportation and distance to big cities around?  

– Tavşanlı is the most crowded county of Kütahya province. It is 120km away from Eskişehir and Bursa, 110km away from Bilecik and 130km away from Uşak. So, it has a central junction point among big cities. When we think of other big cities, it is approximately 330km away from Ankara, 400km from Antalya and İzmir. Tavşanlı is a central place among big cities. We are in the center of Aegean Region.

How can you describe the economic structure of Tavşanlı?

– Tavşanlı is a developed county with its commerce. Because it can be seen as a trade center for the counties around it. Harmancık, Domaniç, Emet, Hisarcık, all of the counties has a distance between 30 and 50km. Trade center of this region is Tavşanlı. Besides, there were mostly public investments, as commonly known. In the Lignite pit (A State Coal Mine), there were 8000 workers and there were over 1000 workers in thermal power plant.  We had over 10000 workers working in state institutions in the city center. They were all local people. So, our trade level has risen. However, we are always inadequate about production and couldn’t develop it. This situation is related to the opportunities that State provided for us and also to high level of income. People having a high level of income haven’t looked for new ways and investments. After we used up these opportunities, we decided to build up our organized industry sites and had studies on trade areas. We had a success about %20 or %30. We couldn’t reach our goal completely.

– Is Tavşanlı suitable for investors about its topography, climate and similar features?

– Investors mostly look for opportunities more than topography. The most important of these opportunities is employment. Also, finding workers and craft is important. At this point, we have a population of about 230000 with the cities around us and investors will not have employment problem. Also, all the companies investing in our city choose here because they don’t have a problem about finding workers. Also, because they have a ready infrastructure like electric, water, natural gas, roads and transportation… As long as we don’t have any problem,  investors will always come to Tavşanlı. We are a region taking incentives. We are the fourth area in incentives scope and the fifth area in organized industry incentives. We have a place after eastern provinces.

– Are you ready for investments in terms of qualified labor force?

– We have business high schools having a background of 40-50 years. We also have experience with state sector and have enough qualified workers in Tavşanlı. We have many people graduated from High Schools and Universities. Postgraduate students can’t stay in Tavşanlı because they have more opportunities. We have many people who graduated from business high schools and most of them work in industry sites currently, and we have no problem.  That is to say, we have advantage.

– What are the investment areas of Tavşanlı; mining, agriculture, husbandry and similar areas?

– When we consider about Kütahya, soil industry is developed. We have forests. We have mine and profitable mines currently being processed. Mines like Iron, chromium, silver, coal, magnetite are being processed.

– Is Tavşanlı suitable for husbandry investments and what are the investment opportunities?

Our region is suitable for husbandry. We couldn’t improve husbandry in our region. We had problems on infrastructure. Feeder barns are very old and they are very close to city. So, they had many problems because we couldn’t allocate a site for them. Currently, we have approximately 35000 cattle in Tavşanlı. It could have been 40000 or 50000 in a short time but we couldn’t succeed. It can be reached easily with new investments. We have ready projects now. There are new investments but the most important point is that there were more than 400 poultry farms in Tavşanlı, the number of them is very low at present. Because of the reasons mentioned above. We couldn’t allocate a place for them and they stayed very close to city.

– Actually, there is a potential for this, investors may be waiting for only infrastructures?

– Of course, we should form a new husbandry area. There must be incentives for these areas and currently there are incentives approximately %60 or %65 by the state. 

– Is Tavşanlı advantageous about State Supports and Incentives and what are the supports in sectoral base?

– There are incentives around Turkey. For example, there is TKDK (Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution). There are grants on husbandry, agriculture, agricultural machines about %50-60-65. There are many people using them in our region. However, we are not ordinate and organized, we do all of them individually. There is %90 incentive for land allocation in organized industry area. We have more incentives than Kütahya. It would be more beneficial to form an area if we act together and be organized instead of acting individually.

– What is the situation about customs in Tavşanlı and Kütahya?

– A new Revenue Office has been constituted in Kütahya and it works very well. Customs clearance processes began in Kütahya. Tavşanlı also will work on this office. It will improve and grow soon. Kütahya is handling with this issue and it will succeed. Kütahya is ready. Export processes have already begun and we don’t need to look for a different place. Also, we don’t have a problem about shipment. We have airports for shipment. The more our opportunities and amenities rise, the more our people and investors will improve. The investors follow the opportunities. There are many tasks for local managers at this point. They must be very practical and leading in planning and other issues.

– What about the economic situation of Tavşanlı at the moment?

– When we consider Kütahya, there are still immigrates. Tavşanlı as well however, it is one of the lowest rate among others. In general, there are problems about number of employed people and economic income in our county. What is essential is the increase in employment and production. As long as our economic input increases, there will be a relief. It is a must that we should perform serious studies to improve our economy. We need more cooperation between the organizations in Kütahya.

– Well, do you think they will have any problems if foreign investors come to Tavşanlı and can they find the opportunities they look for?

– We need to perform a separate study for this. Major investors are directed by Prime Ministry Investment Agency. We should deliver our requests for it but it is not just enough to requests. There must be suitable opportunities for investors about this. Kütahya can deal with foreign investors. There will be no problem with employers and technical staff. They will not have any problems about the estate. I think Kütahya doesn’t have any expectation like that. It is not a tall order if we make our estates ready and can reach some points in Ankara.

– Thank you for all information you gave.