Italy Sees Turkey As Potential Machine Tool Export Market

At a meeting organized by Italian Trade Center in Istanbul last week, marketing director of the Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machine Tools, Francesco Simioni confirmed that Turkey is rising fast in the ranks of Italy's top export markets. According to Dr Francesco Pensabene, deputy head of the Italian Trade Center in Istanbul, Italian machine tool exports to Turkey grew 15% for the first half of 2006, taking the third place among Turkey's machine tool suppliers. In 2005, Turkey ranked the 14th in the world's machine tool production and imported a total of US$796.8 million of machine tools, increased 23.4% from the previous year. Germany, the largest machine tool supplier of Turkey, occupies 23% of Turkey's imports, while Taiwan and Italy take up 20% and 14% respectively. The Italian consul general in Istanbul, Massimo Rustico, said in a trade seminar, "Turkey has an enormous capacity for machine tools and its industrial sector appreciates Italian design and technical expertise."