The general spirit of the employment and social security, finance and monetary policies, and tax and incentive issues were already discussed in our first article titled "Here Are What 64th Turkish Government Promises" published on February 23, 2016. Therefore, the scope of this article is limited on the key sectors which were mentioned in the 64th Government Program of Turkey.
Agriculture
The 64th Government will arrange the agricultural supports in 190 sub basins on the basis of regions and products by considering climate, earth, topography, current water potential and water consumption of the plants. The Government will also remove value added taxes on pellet feeds and fertilizers. The Government will give unrequited support to the farmers with projects in the amount of thirty thousand Turkish Liras. Furthermore, they will make support payments to farmers who are farming fruits, vegetables, decoration plants, perfumery-medicinal-aromatic plants with a business which is smaller than five decares. They will increase the capacity of seed development and production. The Government will popularize the contractual production in plant production by prioritizing safflower, canola and soy bean. In addition to that the 64th Government will increase the certificated seed production up to 880,000 tones. Moreover, the Government will increase the share of the bio farming in cultivated areas from 1,95% to 4%.
Energy
The Government is planning to use nuclear technology in order to produce electricity and to put good use of our local and renewable energy sources. Stopping the energy waste, minimizing its environmental impact and obtaining a competitive energy system to make our country more strategic in international energy trade market are their top priority.
By creating a list of the products, whose production can provide higher added-value and which are considered as input in the energy sector; the 64th Government will support the investment of such products. The Government will increase the share of local production of the machines and equipment which are being used in wind, solar, hydroelectric energy facilities. They signed agreements in order to build two nuclear power plants in Akkuyu and Sinop. In addition to these two, in this term, they will start the construction of the third nuclear power plant.
Moreover they are planning to complete natural gas distribution to all accommodations in all provinces. The 64th Government will accomplish the Trans-Anatolia Natural Gas Pipeline Project that they signed as an international agreement with Azerbaijan. Furthermore, they are aiming to distribute the natural gas to Italy through Greece and Albania by Trans-Adriatic Natural Gas Pipeline Project and to purchase gas for Turkey and Europe with Iraq-Turkey Natural Gas Pipeline Project.
Infrastructure/PPP
The 64th Government will prevent the possible additional costs and conflicts between projects by improving information share and co-decision procedures in planning and execution phases of institutions running big infrastructure projects. They will establish administrative mechanisms and make arrangements concerning these aims.
The Government will complete the large projects which have been initiated with Public-Private Cooperation method and we will accomplish many new projects such as new highways, high-speed railways with the Public-Private Cooperation method. The current disorganized legislation on public and private sector cooperation will be arranged in one framework law.
Logistic
The Government will construct new highways, especially in Marmara region, with Build-Operate-Transfer model in order to connect important corridors and highways. They will complete the construction and bring into service of Istanbul-Bursa-Izmir Highway (Including Izmit Transition Bridge) and Northern Marmara Highway. By also starting to construct Dardanelles Bridge, the Government will create the Marmara Ring covered with highways and bridges.
Moreover, the 64th Government will accomplish mega transportation projects. They designed a three floored Great Istanbul Tunnel for car and metro transitions under the Bosphorus which will be the first of its kind since there will be only one tunnel instead of two. 6,5 million passenger will use such project and this project will connect nine different railway systems, and will ease the traffic of the Bogazici and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridges. This project will be accomplished with Build-Operate-Transfer model. In addition to those, they will continue to work on the one of the biggest projects of the century, Canal Istanbul Project. The Government will also integrate our railway network with international railway network by enlarging the current railway systems till our borders by enabling carrying load and passengers. They will make further railway connections between production zones and commercial custom zones. The 64th Government will finalize the configuration of Turkish State Railways which is a critical institution in logistic sector.
They will construct the new third airport in Istanbul and support the aviation sector in order to have more shares in the sector and to make Istanbul one of the most important transit centers of the world. The 64th Government will convert Turkey into one of the transit port countries which is integrated with global water transport, will renew the commercial fleet of Turkey in order to get more share from global shipping trade and make our ship, yacht construction industry more competitive by equipping the same with better and innovator technology. The Government will also prepare and enact an integrative logistic legislation.
Mining
The 64th Government will provide opportunity to Mineral Research & Exploration General Directorate to make mining operations in abroad. They will reduce the scrap input dependency of Iron Steel Industry sector. They will improve the compatibility of mining sector with the environmental legislation. They Government will effectively apply the provisions of Mining Law and other relevant legislations concerning the occupational health and safety. The Government will also provide mining products such as chromium and marble to be processed in Turkey and increase the added-value of the same.
Health Services
The Government is aiming to make Turkey the pioneer country in the region concerning the healthcare services. They will increase the capacity in healthcare tourism, cosmetic and medicine industry and medical technology. The Government is aiming the increase our competitive power by improving medical, thermal and elderly tourism fields with "Preferred Conversion Program on the Development of Healthcare Tourism".
Banking
The Government will develop various mechanisms in order to bring savings kept in gold to the system by prioritizing gold banking. In the urban transportation projects, the Government will use new finance tools such as SUKUK. With their new visionary foreign policies, our country will host the 13th Islamic Summit in 2016. Such summit will be made on April 13-15, 2016 and Turkey will be the term president of the same for 3 years.
Chemistry
The 64th Government will encourage research and development activities in the fields such as inorganic chemistry, bio-fuel, and alternative composite materials.
Tourism
The Government will accomplish the objectives we projected with the Turkey Tourism Strategy by increasing the sources for tourism. Besides the sea, sand and sun tourism, they will also handle and improve healthcare, thermal, winter, golf, ecological, highland, congress, expo tourism.
Conclusion
Above mentioned projects are expected to be completed within four years. For instance, most of the logistic projects will be completed soon and same goes for mining since legislative changes are already in the parliament. As for tourism, with the recent political environment, serious difficulties have occurred, but the Government already took measures in order to prevent any hazardous outcomes. As Serap Zuvin Law Offices, we hope that all these projects will be actualized in no time.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
