Leading port operator looks for new investments in Turkey

APM Terminals, a port operator owned by AP Moeller-Maersk, is looking for new ports to invest in Turkey, where the container business offers huge growth potential in the long-term, said the company's Turkey chief.

At the same time, APM Terminal's Turkey chief Mogens Wolf Larsen also requested that Turkish authorities ease bureaucratic processes for foreign investors by launching a special agency to help them.

The Hague-based APM Terminals and Petkim, owned by Azerbaijan's SOCAR, are together investing more than $400 million in the APM port in the Aliağa district of İzmir, which will have an annual container handling capacity of 1.3 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, making it the largest of its kind in the Aegean region, when it is completed.

"We have been looking for new investments in Turkey because it is a very interesting market for us. The fundamentals of the Turkish market with the respect of population growth, the share of the young population, the growth pace of the Turkish GDP and Turkey's geographical location as a potential hub for Central Asia make Turkey very interesting for us and for our industry. We want to invest more in Turkey in this vein," Larsen, also APM Terminal İzmir's managing director, said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News on Oct. 26, one day before the ninth Investment Advisory Council Meeting in Istanbul.

The ninth Investment Advisory Council Meeting was organized by the Turkish government with the attendance of the top chiefs from 21 large global companies to discuss suggestions about what Turkey can do to lure more investment and hear what Ankara can offer.

Larsen said they had mainly been looking for opportunities in three regions in Turkey.

"We are very much...