NEWS

Free Zones have been established in Türkiye for a multitude of reasons, including opening Türkiye to the world, increasing the growth of foreign trade volume, promoting investment and manufacturing for export, accelerating inflow of foreign capital and technology, facilitating cheaper and regular procurement of the economy’s input requirements and making more use of external finance and trade opportunities. Incentives and advantages of free zones are equally available to all companies, be it foreign or domestic. Operators and users can also benefit from non-tax incentives to be specified by the Government during the investment and manufacturing phases. 

 

Today, Türkiye holds a fiercely competitive place in the world markets through the domestic/foreign companies manufacturing and/or commercially operating in 19 Free Zones.  In this regard, free zones contribute to an economic development by enhancing export, creating new employment fields and bringing the latest technologies to the country on one hand, and on  the other hand significantly contributing to a positive change in the social, cultural and economic lives of the regional population.     

 

 

The Aegean Free Zone holds a special place among the rest of the free zones in Türkiye and has fulfilled its mission and all other duties expected of a free zone. 

 

As an economic development model, the Aegean Free Zone accounts for the following:

 

 

• Highest number of foreign direct investments 

• Highest number of technology investments 

• Highest employment rate 

• Highest number of export-based production 

 

The Aegean Free Zone is located in the town of Gaziemir in Izmir and is established on an area of 2.220.026 m². Its boundaries were specified by a Government on Jan.11,  1987 under no. 87/11401, and the Zone was officially opened in 1990 based on the Build-Operate-Transfer model.  

 

The Aegean Free Zone provides employment for nearly 19,000 people. There are currently 75 foreign and 120 domestic companies (195 in total) operating at the Zone in multiple industries, including automotive sub-industry, aerospace, textile, electric-electronics, food, construction materials, energy sub-industry, packaging materials, chemistry and metal. The Aegean Free Zone ranks at the top of all free zones in terms of trade volume, employment, variability of industries and number of licenses. 

Since the first commercial activity in 1990, total trade volume of the Zone has reached 55.5 billion USD. The Aegean Free Zone is a center of production and export. In May 2013, commodity flow from the Zone to overseas was 801,985,587 USD, whereas in May 2014, this amount increased 5.55 % to 846,513,003 USD. 

Industries with advanced technologies in our Zone, such as aviation firms Fokker Elmo and Kale Pratt & Whitney, help to contribute to additional investments in the Zone by being part of special clusters.  Both firms belong to the first Aerospace Clustering Association in Türkiye and help attract more business.  Space Camp Türkiye, which is also located at the Aegean Free Zone and is one of only three space camps in the world, provides international youth education and training in the space sciences, technology and math and motivates them in their career choices. ESBAS provides exceptional care for the children of the Zone employees at the Child Care Center located at Aegean Free Zone.