Turgut Özen Mermer focused on Vietnam

Exporting 95 percent of the production as processed marble, Turgut Özen Mermer focused on Vietnam as a new market in 2017 besides the main export markets; Middle eastern countries and Russia. Stating that the company has a wide portfolio in the foreign market, yet a low market share domestically, President of Executive Board of Turgut Özen Mermer, Turgut Özen said: “We aim to renew our quarry and machine track this year and work with the latest system equipment,”. Stating that they export the Bilecik beige and rosa beige extracted from the current quarries, Özen emphasized that their searches for new markets were ongoing.

Expressing that the quarry and factory of their company are located in Bilecik, Turgut Özen said that they had been involved in many projects abroad and domestically since 1994. Stating that they aim for a 15 percent turnover increase this year, Özen said that they had exported marble to 30 different countries with Middle east and Russia taking the lead. Underlining that Bilecik beige and rosa beige are extracted from their quarries, Özen informed that should the market searches bear a result, they would invest in equipment and employment. Stating that there has been a recession for the last three years in foreign trade and this has started to shrink the marble sector, Turgut Özen said: “Shrinking markets and bureaucratic obstacles cause unease in the sector. Getting the mine and forest permission from the Prime Ministry in accordance with the Circular of Prime Ministry accepted on 16 June 2012, and the long bureaucratic processes for license extensions and forest permissions negatively affect our sector. Vagueness of the granting for the licenses and forest operating permissions causes the license owners to be uncertain about the future and therefore stop their investments”.