‘Qatar and Turkey moving fast forward with stronger trade ties’

British Motor Company

British Motor Company (BMC) is Turkey’s largest manufacturer of commercial and military vehicles and since its establishment in 1964 it has manufactured more than 300.000 vehicles to date, Murat Yalcintas, Chief Executive Officer of BMC, told the media team from Qatar during their recent visit to Turkey.

Those present on the occasion were Abdullah Deniz, Country Advisor, Presideny of the Republic of Turkiye, Investment Office, Qatar; Metin Olcay, International Business Development Director; and Gorkem Bilgi, Vice President, International Business Development, Defence.

BMC offices are located in state-of-the-art Teknopark sector in Istanbul with the aim to provide protection of technology and to mediate the economy with the idea, invention, innovation, and high value-added information.

Murat Yalcintas, in his briefing to the media team from Qatar, said that BMC productions are being utilized in more than 80 countries all across the globe. “BMC offers special solutions for automotive and defence industries with its modern facilities in Sakarya, Turkey and Izmir, Turkey wide product range, qualified workforce, and high production capacity.

In addition to the factories, Yalcintas said, BMC has three coordination/liaison offices – in Ankara, Istanbul and Doha – to follow up the ongoing and future project and business cooperation opportunities not only in Turkey and Qatar, but also in all the regions from Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Americas.

BMC Production Facilities, he noted, is designed with the flexibility to manufacture many commercial and defence industry vehicles with different configurations ranging from commercial buses to trucks, and from armoured vehicles protected against mines to tactical wheeled vehicles. “All performance tests for the prototypes developed with superior engineering capabilities and advanced manufacturing technology are performed according to the international standards”.

The BMC CEO added that a dynamic and powerful human resource with more than 3,000 employees, BMC owns all its solutions ranging from design to R&D, and from production to sales marketing and after sales services.

“BMC, with its multinational business culture and history, intends to take a step to initiate a long-term win-win business opportunity all around the world in over 80 countries since 1964. With the partnership of the Qatar Armed Forces Industrial Committee in 2014 with BMC, our vision and mission started to target to be the one of most reliable and developed OEM country for military and commercial vehicle suppliers,” he said.

“With this increasing business and industrial collaboration, at BMC, our first aim is to establish Local Logistic Center to conduct maintenance activities, trainings, spare part warehouse in Qatar, using this logistic support center as the central hub for Middle-East and Africa is the next step,” he added.

Ozlem Telatar, Corporate Communications Manager, Teknopark Istanbul, in her briefing to the visiting Doha-based journalists, said, “the principal purpose of establishing the research hub of Teknopark istanbul is to increase the wealth of the society by supporting the culture of innovation and competitiveness of knowledge-based companies, manage and promote the flow of information and technology between universities, R&D institutions, firms, and the sector. Facilitating the formation and growth of innovative companies with the incubation centers they host, Techno parks provide high-quality spaces to these companies and provide value-added services”.

Teknopark Istanbul was built in four modules to provide services in accordance with the potential of Istanbul, namely Collaboration Development, Project Development, Industrial Property Rights, and Cluster Supports.

The first-ever Teknopark was founded in 1952 in Northern California, USA under the name Stanford Research Park (Silicon Valley).

In Turkey, a great emphasis is given on technological expertise programs with the collaboration and cooperation between the public sector, industry and the university.

According to the information announced by Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology, 67 of the 85 Technology Development Zones continue to operate, while 18 of them are still not operational due to the continuing infrastructure works.

Telatar said there are 416 R&D companies in operation with 8,374 engineers, 844 ongoing projects, 2,823 national projects, 300 graduate incubation companies and 120-plus incubation companies settled in Teknopark Istanbul.