Tupras refineries ranked biggest industry in Turkey

ISTANBUL

The refinery giant Tupras continued to be Turkey’s top industrial enterprise, according to the Istanbul Chamber of Industry ((ICI).

According to the 2018 survey, Tupras retained the leadership with production-based sales worth 79 billion TL ($14.9 billion) in 2018.

Automotive companies Ford also maintained its second position with a production-based sales value of 31 billion TL ($5.85 billion). Toyota Automotive takes the third place with 23.6 billion TL ($4.45 billion), according to an annual survey of Turkey's top 500 industrial enterprises, conducted by the ICI.

The survey, which was released on Tuesday also found that car manufacturer Oyak-Renault and Tofas, major appliances producer Arcelik, iron/steel companies Iskenderun Demir ve Celik, Eregli Demir ve Celik and Icdas Celik, and vehicle producer Hyundai Assan, were also among top 10 enterprises.

The 500 top Turkish enterprises posted a total of 878 billion TL ($165.7 billion) production-based sales in 2018, up 34.5% from the previous year.
It added that increasing prices and foreign exchange rates were key factors for this rapid growth.

The first 50 enterprises' share in total production-based sales of top 500 firms was 50.6% in 2018, up from 50.2% in 2017.
The operational profit rate of 500 enterprises' rose by 1.3 percentage point to 10.9%, accounting to 107.8 billion TL ($20.34 billion), in the last year.
Their share in the country's total exports was 42.8% in 2018, rising from 41.1% in 2017.

They employed over 690,000 people last year, an increase of 2.4% from the previous year. The ICI has been announcing data on Turkey’s top 500 companies since 1968.

The U.S. dollar / Turkish lira rate was 5.30 as of the end of 2018.