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What's Happening With Turkey?
By Phillip Keates

Turkey provides many advantages to investors, it is a growing market with a friendly environment with a wide array of investment opportunities. In 2002 it's market share was 1.7% of the global total equating to 13.2 million tourists and generating € 8.5 billion in revenue. These figures recorded an increase 5% higher than in 2003. According to figures released by the WTO, Turkey is the fastest growing tourism market in the world with a growth rate of 10% p.a.

Turkey offers different projects with development facilities for accommodating tourists and their needs. In order to diversify further in tourism, Turkey has promoted sites located further inland, for those whose preference is to be away from coastal resorts. Currently, tourism activities in the country are concentrated along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, where about 80% of Turkey's tourism accommodation can be found. However, investments made for accommodation are sufficient to meet future tourism demand, consequently, Turkey has a strong desire to attract both national and international investors.

The sites officially declared as "preservation and development areas of culture and for tourism " are currently being decided by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The ministry has opened up new areas for investments. For officially designated sites, the land allocation process for investors will start with the approval of the macro physical plans. The physical plans for the whole region or the sub-regions are drawn up and approved by the ministry.

There are a great number of companies, both Turkish and foreign operated who claim to have access to these new green fields opportunities but most however do not. It is very difficult for people to understand the nature of investment in Turkey and how far some people will go to become millionaires overnight. On occasions we have been shown land proclaimed as exclusive and 'off market' through a contact in a government ministry only to find that the guy's brother's friend works in a government office and has no influence whatsoever.

They believe that it's ok to get you and/or your investor interested and they can then stall you and go to the official in charge to request a meeting for the possibility of selling assets which weren't actually on the market at all. Cart before the horse it might be, but it's not funny when you have investors waiting for phone calls and information about assets to which there is none currently available.

The solution? Choose your real estate investment company carefully in Turkey. Firstly they must have offices in Turkey with a credible address and dedicated phone and fax numbers. Secondly check out their web presence, they are an excellent and efficient way of transmitting great chunks of information about a company's profile, business experience and mission statement and if a company has a below par web site, unclear or with spelling mistakes they probably apportion a similar attention to detail over the quality of information they provide regarding investment opportunities. For a good example of an investment company in Turkey web site visit www.pashacorporation.com

Pasha Group - http://pashacorporation.com
Pasha Realty - http://pasharealty.com
Tel: (0090) 242 259 5205