TOBB: Third of foreign companies founded in Turkey based in Syria, Iran

One in three foreign companies founded in the first half of 2015 in Turkey are Iran and Syria-invested companies, according to data released by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) on July 20.

In the first six months of 2015, some 35,625 companies and cooperatives were established in Turkey, including 2,395 co-invested foreign companies. Some 750 of these are registered to be co-invested by Syria and 142 by Iran, amounting to over a third of the 892 companies in total. Some 184 were German-invested companies, according to the TOBB data.

While the overall number of newly established companies increased by 18.1 percent from the first six months of last year, the number of liquidated companies fell by 8.2 percent.

According to the TOBB's report, the number of closed cooperatives dropped by 7.1 percent and the number of natural entity commercial undertakes dropped by 1.2 percent.