01 December 2005

Turkey: The panel and veneer industry in Turkey

by Pietro Stroppa

Our series on countries of the world continues. In this issue we will be talking about Turkey. Our working method is "on-site research" owing to the fact that, for a publishing house specialising in technical subjects, knowledge of the market is an absolute "must" in terms of providing both advertisers and readers with a professional service. The names of the companies found are entered into a powerful computer which transmits the archive onto the www.datalignum.com internet search engine, based in Cantebury/United Kingdom and owned by our associate Datalignum.com Ltd. At present, the www.datalignum.com search engine contains a worldwide data-base of 106,120 names. The Republic of Turkey is currently governed by the majority of the moderate Islamic party AKP. The Turkish government's request, at the Copenhagen summit held on 13 December 2003, to join the EU was deferred until after 2005.
Turkey extends over a surface area of 770,452 sq km and has a population of 67,844,903 inhabitants of which 22,269,000 are active.
The most significant economic data, based on figures for 2003, are published below:

Population density: 90 inhabitants/sq km.
Annual growth rate: 1.5%.
Birth rate: 21.3%.
Death rate: 7.0%,
Capital: Ankara with 3, 203,362 inhabitants.
Gross National Product (GNP): $250,500 million (USA Dollars.
GNP per capita: $8,000.
Inflation is at 47.1%.
Unemployment: 10.4%.

The forest industry in Turkey is important, in fact, an estimate of its existing forest volume is approximately 18.0 million m3.
Industrial activity in the wood sector began many years ago and, today, important industries, that export wood, veneer and panels to the Middle, Far East and Europe, are active in Turkey.
Contrary to common belief, Turkey boasts a very strong production structure in our sector (as will be seen in several chapters), which is well organized and equipped with the best technology available on a world level.
In short, Turkey is just as good as more advanced countries and is projected towards a future of continuous expansion, also thanks to the considerable volontŽ of the Turks to 'improve themselves constantly'.
The most surprising element of Turkish economy is that in spite of its high inflation rate there is a continous race for investments and consumption of the various goods available on the market.

The panel industry in Turkey
The first study on the panel industry in Turkey was published in September, 1994 in issue no. 101 of Datalignum.
At that time, in order to gain the necessary facts for my article, I also travelled to Turkey, visiting factories and talking to their owners and managers. An update of this chapter will be published in this issue.
The panel industry in Turkey is fairly young, in fact, the first plants installed date back to the fifties. Over the years, production development has resulted in an increase in the number of panel manufacturers, especially in the chipboard sector.
A sequence of negative market trends resulted in the closure of some of the smaller industries which did not have the means to invest.
Hence, even before 1994, the following industries had shut down: Enerel of Beytas/Cisan (output capacity 25,000 m3/year) which sold the Novopan brand and Bilgehan (output capacity 30,000 m3/year).
Information about the Turkish market will be provided thanks to interviews given by some of the most important panel producers and the help of an axiology table to which reference can be made.
Turkey boasts 53 panel manufacturers (see table).
Annual production capacity, by sector, is as follows:
- Chipboard 2,400,000 m3.
- MDF, 1,200,000 m3.
- Plywood, 120.000 m3.
- HDF, 63,000 m3.
- HPL + CPL, 20.000.000 m2.

The first industry to produce MDF in Turkey was Camsan, with the start-up of the Ordu factory in July 1984.

Classification of the most important industries by size and turnover is as follows:
Kastamonu, Starwood, Yildiz Entegre, Orma, etc. Over the last few year, the majority of investments have been in systems for MDF, a product that has grown steadily.
The standard most commonly used in Turkey is 183x366 cm.

This is only an extract of what we have published in Datalignum.
To have the addresses and more information about the companies, please contact our Publishing House datalignum@datalignum.com .

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