Invest in Istanbul agency opens for business
Afree-to-use, one-stop investment agency devised to help international businesses operating in Istanbul to sidestep Turkey’s notorious layers of bureaucracy has opened its doors ahead of plans to replicate the service across the country.
Invest in Istanbul has been created to consolidate the investment support and promotion services in Istanbul. The platform carries out services with the cooperation of prominent city partners, including governmental bodies, local stakeholders, and business and trade associations.
Coordinated by the Istanbul Development Agency, the service agency works in partnership with the Governorship of Istanbul, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and Istanbul Chamber of Industry. Invest in Istanbul aims to promote the city’s investment opportunities and assist international investors through all necessary bureaucratic steps to successfully start a business in Turkey’s economic center of growth.
“This synergy will no doubt add value to Istanbul’s investment climate,” Ozgul Ozkan Yavuz, secretary-general at the Istanbul Development Agency, told DUNYA Executive. ”Istanbul has a thriving $449 billion economy. The city is committed to strengthening its trade and commerce worth $192 billion across the globe and rapidly transforming into a regional finance hub in the mid-term.”
A real one-stop shop
Yavuz said Invest in Istanbul differs from other investment promotion agencies in that “the bureaucratic steps required to launch a business in Istanbul are handled within a single office.” This practical element has been made possible by staff being assigned from various governmental institutions along with relevant software and intranet applications.
“As such, investors can submit official documents directly to these qualified staff and accelerate the process of setting up their businesses in Istanbul,” she said, adding that the service is free of charge.
Eas ng bureaucrat c burden of nternat onal nvestors
Among the high profile pledges made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, particularly during the pre-referendum period, was the alleviation of the burden of bureaucratic procedures by creating more compact economic administrations where all units operate in coordination.
“Invest in Istanbul will serve as a window for making investments and will reduce bureaucracy, thus enabling Istanbul to receive more investments,” said Yildirim during the agency’s opening ceremony.
Yavuz believes creative, entrepreneurial citizens help to make Istanbul an innovation incubator and the source of new ideas, products and services.
“Over the past 15 years, Istanbul’s economy has experienced rapid structural change. Istanbul’s defining economic role has evolved from an efficiency-driven economy to an innovation-driven economy with strong, multi-faceted international connections that have strengthened dramatically with the rise of Turkey’s broad vision,” Yavuz said.
“No doubt that after the spread of this pilot project to Turkey’s other provinces,” she added, “the country’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index will immediately leap into the world’s top 10.”