ANKARA
Türkiye plans to draw on its geographical position and an EU customs deal to entice Chinese investors keen to access European markets tariff-free, as it recently just did with carmaker BYD.
The Chinese electric vehicle giant signed a billion-dollar deal with Ankara on Monday to open a plant in western Türkiye, promising to create 5,000 jobs, a move that will help it dodge new EU tariffs.
The country, at the crossroads between Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, is in talks with other Chinese companies, Türkiye’s Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır said this week.
“We want to transform Türkiye into a production centre for the next generation of vehicles,” Kacır told private broadcaster Haberturk.
The minister emphasised his country’s selling points, including being part of the EU’s customs union and having trade agreements with 28 countries.
“Chinese producers want rapid access to international markets,” he said. “Investing in Türkiye offers them that.”
The EU recently slapped additional provisional tariffs of up to 38 percent on Chinese EVs following an investigation that concluded state subsidies meant they were unfairly undermining European rivals.
But Ankara struck a customs deal with the EU in 1995 that enables the free flow between them of a number of goods, notably cars.
Türkiye became one of the leading centres of the world’s automobile industry starting in the 1970s, when major carmakers including Fiat and Renault opened plants there — with others like Ford, Toyota and Hyundai following.
BYD’s Turkish base will allow the Chinese EV specialist to bypass EU tariffs upped by Brussels in July, and enter European markets.
Under new regulations on investment incentives, BYD will be able to circumvent a new 40 percent tariff that Türkiye originally imposed on electric vehicle imports. Manufacturers investing in the country will be exempt.
A new partnership
At least five other Chinese carmakers are now considering opening plants in Türkiye, state-owned news agency Anadolu reported.
Turkish manufacturer TOGG and Chinese firm Farasis have also partnered up to produce EV batteries in Türkiye.
Turkish officials have held numerous meetings with Chinese industrialists in the last year, the industry ministry said.
Türkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan visited China in June to seal a new bilateral deal, calling the countries “drivers of Asian wealth.”
His visit to Xinjiang was the first by a high-ranking Turkish official since 2012. The west China province is where Beijing is accused of human rights violations against more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.
Former diplomat Gulru Gezer says that while it is important, China’s treatment of the Uyghurs, who speak a Turkic langiage, is not the only issue on Beijing and Ankara’s mutual agenda — and it shouldn’t hamper their relations.
“Fidan’s visit supported this,” she said. “The fact that Beijing let Fidan go into Xinjiang, talk to the population, were positive steps.”
However, China and Türkiye’s warming relations are based on mutual interests, Gezer said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has confirmed his desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, whose members include China, Russia and Iran, but where Türkiye is only a partner.
