Page 96 - TURKRptMay19

exports fell by 7% y/y to 320,213 units.
Sales of passenger cars and LCVs in Turkey fall 35.5% y/y in March.
Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in Turkey decreased by 35.5% y/y in March to 49,221 units, the country’s Automotive Distributors’ Association (ODD) said on April 2. It added that in the first quarter of the year sales dropped 44.2% y/y. The decline came despite extended tax cuts introduced by the government to encourage purchases amid Turkey’s recessionary environment. In January, the ODD said auto sales in Turkey declined by 35% in 2018. A total 620,937 passenger car and LCV units were sold, down from 956,194 units in the previous year. Vehicles sales declined throughout last year—the only two monthly exceptions were February and March when sales increased by 0.09% y/y and 3.45% y/y, respectively. The market shrank 77% y/y in October, 68% y/y in September and 53% y/y in August. In December last year, auto sales were down 43% y/y to 77,706 units.
9.1.3 Transport sector news
Istanbul’s Ataturk airport sends off last commercial flight after 66 years of operation. Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, opened in 1953, on April 6 waved goodbye to its last commercial passenger flight.
Investments in transport links to the airport on the Black Sea coast are said to have fallen behind the construction of the facility.
At the same time, convoys of trucks were hauling thousands of tonnes of equipment to the giant Istanbul Airport, around 35 kilometres from the centre of Turkey’s business capital, as part of a 45-hour transfer drawn up to bring the country’s new international airport into full operation. Istanbul Airport—which has so far cost between $7.2bn and $12bn to build depending on whose figures you choose to believe—will initially be able to handle 90mn passengers a year. Authorities, intent on making it the world’s busiest airport, plan to expand that capacity to 200mn. Even as officials boasted that they planned to quickly make it the busiest airport in the world, it was patently clear construction and other project targets had fallen substantially behind schedule. Critics said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had conducted something of a ‘Potemkin village’ inauguration on last October’s Proclamation Day of Ataturk’s Republic. There was particular concern from human rights groups that dozens of workers had lost their lives in what they claimed were preventable accidents at the airport construction site and that an indeterminate, but seemingly high, number of people had been killed in accidents involving construction site trucks joining the Istanbul traffic. The level of investment that has been put into realising Istanbul Airport is uncertain, with various reports putting the total at between $7.2bn and $12bn. There is some concern that not nearly enough
96 TURKEY Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com