About this Section

This industry includes the provision of passenger or freight transport, whether scheduled or not, by rail, pipeline, road, water or air and associated activities such as terminal and parking facilities, cargo handling, storage etc. Included in this section is the renting of transport equipment with driver or operator. Also included are postal and courier activities.

This industry excludes:

- major repair or alteration of transport equipment, except motor vehicles, see group 33.1

- construction, maintenance and repair of roads, railways, harbours, airfields, see division 42

- maintenance and repair of motor vehicles, see 45.20

- renting of transport equipment without driver or operator, see 77.1, 77.3

Industries within this Section

  • Air transport
  • Land transport and transport via pipelines
  • Postal and courier activities
  • Warehousing and support activities for transportation
  • Water transport

Deregulation and  privatization in the industry

Turkish Transportation and Storage industry has been undergoing a structural transformation since the mid 1980s. Road transport has been the dominant mode of transportation in Turkey since the 1950s, while all other modes were neglected including rail transport, which had always been on the forefront of Turkey’s transportation policy until then. Sweeping privatization and deregulation efforts spanning three decades have extensively transformed once predominantly state-owned industry. Efforts for deregulation and privatization of the industry started with the civil aviation sector and paved the way for a competitive landscape and eventually led to improved customer service and service quality in the air transportation sector in Turkey.  The Customs union agreement with the EU in 1995 and the accession talks with the EU in 2005 expedited the structural reforms and gave rise to extensive transportation infrastructure investments in all industry segments.

Business cycles and the industry

Business cycles enable business agents to understand the salient characteristics of the observed pervasive and persistent nonseasonal fluctuations of the economy. It is generally accepted that business cycles have a number of impacts on enterprises operating in the economy such as changing demand levels, need to expand or rationalise operations and personnel levels. It is generally observed that firms of different sizes respond to the business cycle differently. Some of these differences stem from differences in the types of economic shocks measured i.e. supply-sided shocks versus demand-sided shocks. In Turkish experience, smaller enterprises often gets impacted by the business cycles disproportionately as compared to the larger firms and this may well be attributed to the availability of credit during contractions.   TurkAnalitik views that the Turkish economy stayed on the expansion path of the business cycle between 2002 and 2018, with the exception of economic slowdowns in the aftermath of domestic, international and regional developments such as the financial crisis in the US and Europe in 2008, outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, several terrorist attacks and failed coup attempt in 2016. The robust growth on the back of generally favorable macroeconomic conditions led to increase in tourism investments. Transportation and Storage industry enjoyed high levels of demand for its services fueled by increased consumer spending, improved integration with global trade and economy, expansion in international trade and tourism.  Enterprises in the industry expanded their capacity and size in response to robust economic growth.    

Barriers to foreign direct investment in the industry

Acquiring operating licenses is still complex and involves a lot of red tape despite efforts for simplification thereof. Legal barriers to entry in most segments and antitrust laws provide sufficient regulatory protection for the industry players. Along the lines of privatization efforts, the government made structural reforms to lure FDI into the country. Turkey received 178 billion USD in FDI between 2009 and 2017. In the same period the amount of FDI received by the Transportation and Storage industry was 6 billion USD. In 2017, the industry received 1.35 billion USD in FDI, up 112 per cent from 2016. FDI received by the industry between 2009 and 2017 was at its highest in 2015 with 1.52 billion USD. 

Report details

Published
15 Feb 2019
Pages
43
Versions
1

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