Turkey is getting ready to choose a winning tender for its second nuclear plant and Istanbul’s third airport as early as tomorrow, amid a firesale of many state assets, including a key port in Istanbul and Turkey’s railroads,

Two high-profile tenders are expected to be finalized tomorrow, one for Istanbul’s third airport and the other for the second nuclear plant in Turkey, in the Black Sea province of Sinop.

The tender to build the third airport in Istanbul is set to be made at Ankara Esenboğa Airport tomorrow. Until now, 15 Turkish and two foreign companies have bought the tender specification document for Istanbul’s third airport, which was valued at around 7 billion euros ($9 billion) by Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım.

Many of Turkey’s leading companies, from Sabancı Holding to TAV, İÇ Holding and Limak Holding, had declared their interest in the tender. In order to spark competition for the third airport, the Transportation Ministry introduced some amendments to the specifications last week. The changes made in the specifications included lifting the three-company limit for consortiums and the requirement that a dominant partner own a 51 percent share.

Following the finalization of the tender approval, the first phase of construction is set to be completed in 2017 and will provide an initial capacity of 90 million passengers a year. Once all six of the planned runways are complete, the capacity is expected to increase to 150 million passengers. The tender, however, has been taken to court by the head office of the Turkish Chamber of Environmental Engineers (ÇMO) of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects on the grounds that the project violated the existing legislation for the environmental impact assessment (ÇED) report preparation.

In the race to build Turkey’s second nuclear plant, a Japanese-French partnership appears one step ahead of its Chinese rival; the official announcement of the winning bid is expected by the end of this week, most likely tomorrow.

“The Japanese bid has the advantage, but there is still one or two issues that we need to work on together,” Energy Ministry sources told the Hürriyet Daily News April 29. “We believe that we will find a common way when [Japanese Prime Minister] Shinzo Abe comes to Turkey [May 3].”

Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said last week that Ankara would announce by the weekend who would construct the country’s second nuclear plant, a project located in the Black Sea province of Sinop that is expected to cost around $22 billion. Abe is expected to arrive in Turkey late this evening and will meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, tomorrow. An agreement on the construction of the nuclear plant will be signed after the two prime ministers meet, Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported last week.

There have been various reports in the Japanese media citing unnamed government sources in recent weeks claiming that Japanese firms would build the Sinop plant. The construction of the plant in Sinop is to start in 2017. Turkey plans to have three nuclear plants by 2023.

Turkey’s first electric bus is ready for serial production after a 6-month test.

Turkey’s first electric bus, the Doruk Electra, produced by Turkish bus maker Otokar, is ready to be produced serially and hit the roads after completion of a six-month testing period.

Doruk Elektra, which runs completely on electricity and can cover 280 kilometers of road with a single charge, has been operating on some routes in Istanbul for six months as a part of the Otokar’s deal with Istanbul Public Transport Authority (İETT).

Thanks to six-month operations of the buses on the road, the developers have earned experience ahead of the vehicle’s launch on the market, Otokar’s general manager, Serdar Görgüç said.

“Many municipalities throughout the country have shown interest in the bus. But instead of selling the buses quickly, we preferred to test the performance in the field,” he said.

As the buses’ performances proved themselves, now the company is ready to talk with interested municipalities.

“We’re also receiving demand from cities other than Istanbul, particularly metropolitan cities. After tests with IETT, we’re ready to send off Doruk to these cities,” Görgüç said.

Doruk Electra produces zero emissions with minimal vibration and sound. The bus will be able to function for six to eight hours and cover a distance of 280 kilometers in ideal circumstances and 170 kilometers in heavy traffic with a maximum load of passengers after having been charged. In addition, the bus has an onboard charging unit to recharge itself while waiting at bus stops.

A mission of US defense and aerospace industry firms, which include Bell, Boeing and Sikorsky, will visit Istanbul and Ankara to seek local partners. The US commerce undersecretary will lead the mission.

A large business mission of U.S.-based defense and aerospace companies, including world giants such as Bell Helicopter, Boeing, General Electric and Sikorsky, will arrive in Turkey on Dec. 3 to seek local contracts and partnerships, according to a written statement by the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. U.S. Commerce Undersecretary Francisco J. Sanchez will lead the trade mission of 19 American firms, the statement said.

“Turkey is a priority market for the U.S. Department of Commerce – and the only one in Europe. More and more American firms are discovering the Turkish market and seeking partners in this growing economy. I look forward to returning to Turkey with leading U.S. defense and aerospace companies to facilitate partnerships with Turkish firms,” Sanchez said.
The trade mission will visit Ankara from Dec. 3 to Dec. 5 before going to Istanbul on Dec. 6 for two days.

“The mission will identify opportunities for U.S.-Turkish business partnerships and offer trade financing to qualified firms. This business development effort is part of ongoing efforts to increase bilateral trade and investment between the United States and Turkey, under the aegis of the Framework for Strategic Economic and Commercial Cooperation,” the statement said.

Turkish sector companies are asked to request face-to-face introductions with U.S. companies on the mission.

U.S. companies won two contracts in the past year and are viewed as front-runners in two others. In April 2011, Sikorsky Aircraft defeated Italy’s AgustaWestland in a competition to lead the co-production of more than 100 T-70 utility helicopters, a Turkish version of the Black Hawk International. In January 2012, Turkey’s top procurement body picked Bell Helicopter Textron for the country’s light police helicopters.

The U.S. is among the strongest bidders for Turkey’s estimated $4 billion Long-Range Air and Missile Defense Systems program.

‘Vibrat’ ties
“Since President [Barack] Obama’s visit to Turkey in 2009, we are adding to our vibrant political and defense relationships through increased bilateral trade and investment,” U.S. Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone noted in the press release.

“In 2011 we set a new record with nearly $20 billion in U.S.-Turkish trade. This year, we saw the first visit of a U.S. secretary of commerce to Turkey in 14 years and the first visit ever by a U.S. trade representative. Despite regional tensions, our trade and investment relationship is stronger than ever, building on Turkey’s economic success. In this way, we are fulfilling President Obama’s call to ‘renew the alliance between our nations and the friendship between our peoples.’”

The mission is organized the U.S. Mission’s Commercial Service in partnership with the Undersecretariat of the Defense Industry, Ankara Industry Chamber, Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges (TOBB), American Business Forum in Turkey and the Turkish Businessmen’s Association.

Turkey will buy around 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II aircraft. EPA photo

Turkey will spend up to $8 billion in defense purchases as its exports will reach $2 billion in 2016, four years from now, according to a major estimation by the procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM).

The present figures are around half of that.

The expectations in the SSM’s updated 2012-2016 strategic program are realistic given the money Turkey would pay for expensive systems – such as the F-35s or the U-214 submarines from Germany – over the next few years, as well as the rapid increase in its exports mainly to Islamic countries, according to one defense analyst.

Turkey is in talks with four key foreign suppliers on a $4 billion Long Range Air and Missile Defense Systems project.

The country’s mainly exports armored vehicles of many sorts, rockets and other ammunition, as well as military electronics like radios, to more than 10 Islamic countries. It also sells aviation equipment as part of offset deals.

Fighter jet program delayed

Separately, Turkey has delayed a program to develop a domestic fighter aircraft for the Air Force nearly two years, the strategic document has revealed. “A conceptual design … for the fighter aircraft will be completed by the end of 2014,” the SSM’s program said.

The defense minister at the time, Vecdi Gönül, announced on Dec. 14, 2010, that Turkey would build a fighter aircraft, to be constructed together with a friendly country or fully by itself, by the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 2023.

Gönül told reporters after a meeting of the Defense Industry Executive Committee that the SSM would start talks with the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), the country’s main aerospace company, for a “conceptual design” of a fighter aircraft and a jet trainer to be built after the year 2020.

At the time, Gönül said the TAI would have two years for the conceptual design. He said Turkey’s newly designed fighter aircraft “would be a next-generation type, replacing the [U.S.-made] F-4Es and functioning well with the F-16 and the F-35 … This is effectively a decision for the making of Turkey’s first fighter aircraft.”

However, the new strategic document calls for the completion of the conceptual design by 2014. “The original timetable must be wrong. It’s impossible to complete the conceptual design of a new aircraft in two years. The estimate is more reasonable now,” said one senior procurement official.

Turkey will buy around 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II aircraft built by a team led by the U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, but Gönül said at the time that they were planning to develop the new fighter with a partner other than the United States.

Turkey previously had South Korea in mind, but one South Korean official in Ankara said South Korea was at a more advanced stage than Turkey, and was currently developing its KF-X model with Indonesia. “We can’t say at this point whether it will be with South Korea or not,” Gönül said.

The decline in defense contrasted with an overall 2.3 percent rise in global aerospace and defense revenues, helped by higher production rates of airliners, the 2011 Global Aerospace & Defense Industry performance wrap-up report showed.

Despite the rise in the headline revenue figure, many key financial results generally fell, “likely because of the predominant weighting of the defense sub-segment,” the report said.

European industry grew by 0.8 percent compared with U.S. industry’s 3.3 percent, a lower performance attributed to a difference in “incentives, management philosophies, and work force practice,” the report said.

This is the UTS 15 rifle that will be used in the Hollywood action films.

Turkey’s Utaş Makine Sanayii has signed a deal with an American distributor in Hollywood for its UTS 15 rifle to be used in Hollywood action film productions, according to daily Zaman.

The UTS 15 rifle has already been used in the joint American-Canadian science fiction television show Fringe. Eight UTS 15 rifles will also be used in an upcoming film produced by Universal Pictures in Canada starring Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington. Another film to be shot in Thailand will also use the rifle. Utaş Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Güzeldere said that although the film production team could not purchase a large quantity of rifles, the film still provided a good platform through which to showcase the weapon.

Utaş exports to 25 countries including America, Germany, England, Canada and Kuwait. It is also planning to start selling to Russia and Ukraine. “We sent our first shipment of rifles last week to the U.S. … We expect to sell 25,000 guns in the American market,” said Güzeldere, adding that they planned to sell to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Police Department.

HDN

Turkish Labor and Social Security Minister Faruk Celik said the rise marked a 5.91 percent increase for the first half of 2012 and a 6.09 percent increase for the second half of next year.

Minimum wage for workers under 16 will be net 610.9 TL for the first half of 2012 and it will be 643.15 TL for the second half of 2012.