Tofaş named Turkey's largest R&D investor: Index

Tofaş, a joint venture between Turkey's Koç Holding and Italy's Fiat Chrysler, has been named Turkey's largest research and development investor by a European research unit. 

Among 2,500 companies on the global list by the European Commission's Joint Research Center, there are three other companies owned by Koç, including Ford Otomotiv, Koç Holding and Arçelik, as well as other Turkish companies, Aselsan and Türk Telekom. 

Tofaş has been ranked 547th with 182.5 million euros of R&D investment after it climbed up 27 places compared to a previous list. 

Tofaş CEO Cengiz Eroldu said the company had invested heavily in the R&D sector for years. 

"Not only Tofaş, but the entire Turkish automotive sector has reaped the yields of these investments. With our Fiat Egea project, we have offered competitiveness advantage globally," he said. 

Tofaş has started producing a new Fiat Sedan model, dubbed Fiat Egea, in the northwestern province of Bursa in September 2015. 

Ford Otomotiv, another joint venture between Koç and Ford, ranked 964th on the global list with an 87-million-euro investment, followed by Koç at 1,158th with 68.7 million euros and Aselsan at 1,228th with 63.2 million euros. Koç's home appliances company Arçelik ranked 1,320th on the list with a 56.7-million-euro investment and Türk Telekom ranked 2,444th with 22.2 million euros of investment. 

The list comprises companies based in the EU (590), the U.S. (837), Japan (356), China (327), Taiwan (111), South Korea (75), Switzerland (58) and another 20 countries. 

The top 2,500 firms invested 696 billion euros in R&D between 2015 and 2016, an increase of 6.6 percent compared to the previous year.