With provision of credit sale, natural stone machinery export would exceed 1 billion dollars
The strongest players of global natural stone machinery market can be ranked as Italy, Turkey and China. The brand image of the Italians is very strong. Their prices are high, but they overcome it through long term crediting. The quality of our products is not less than those of Italians. And our prices are much affordable.
Those, who were bitten once by the machine from China, and the investors who think the prices of Italy are too high, prefer us, but they want to buy on credit. We cannot sell on credit, since Middle East, the biggest market, is in the risky area. Their letter of credits must absolutely be confirmed and irrevocable. Should an argument be developed among the states, our export would increase. The number of marble processing plants in Europe has decreased significantly. The sector is still alive in Spain. Apart of that the marble investment increases in South America, Middle East, North Africa and India, where the cost of raw materials and labor force is low. Therefore, these are the biggest markets of marble machineries. China gets a share of around 1.5 billion and Italy of 1 billion out of the stone machinery market worth of approximately 5 billion dollars. And our export increased steadily but it is still around 350-400 million dollars. Should we be provided with the possibility of credit sale, we can achieve an export of 1 billion dollar within two-three years.
Middle eastern market will continue its growth in the next period. We would like to benefit from it. Marble industrialists in Middle east are 20 years behind Turkey. Italians or Chinese or Turks will seek machine there. We have a lot of advantages, primarily the geographical closeness. we are not fully in the Iranian market yet. Because the banking system there is not completely well established. But the Italians find a way to sell.
Conditions of manufacturing in Turkey are increasingly getting tougher. We must produce and export them. We would like to see the government beside us in this sense. The Ministry of Economy acts rapidly for the solution of problems. We requested funds to be placed for the imported natural stone machinery last year. In the latest months of last year, with the efforts of our Minister of Economy, Nihat Zeybekçi, a fund between 14-20 percent were placed on the imported marble and mine machines. Another regulation we request from the government is to exclude the imported machines, the equivalent of which are manufactured in Turkey, off the investment incentives and to support the industrialists investing in the domestic machine with VAT exemptions and plus 10-point incentives. Such incentives were used between 1988-90. Especially Halkbank provided such incentives to SMES. Both VAT exemption was provided and an aid up to 10 percent of the investment value was granted. we submitted our request to the Ministry of Economy and we had a meeting with the representatives of the ministry. They are working on the subject. We expect the regulation to be made this year.