Turkish firms bag $220B projects overseas in 10 years

By Erdal Celikel

ANKARA (AA) - The business volume of Turkish contractors worldwide reached approximately $220 billion during the last 10 years, according to data from the Economy Ministry on Friday.

The contractors ranked second in the world after China, taking up 4,152 projects overseas between 2008 and 2017.

The first contracted project was carried out in Libya in 1972; since then until the last July Turkish firms have carried out 9,018 projects in 117 countries, totaling $344.7 billion in business volume.

The average project cost was $37.1 million in 2008, which doubled to $79.3 million in July this year.

Russia ranked first with $67.6 billion (19.6 percent) among projects carried out in the last 45 years. This was followed by Turkmenistan with $46.8 billion (13.6-pct) and Libya with $28.9 billion (8.4-pct).

Turkish contractors were mostly involved in construction projects of highways, tunnels and bridges that were valued at $44.1 billion. Housing projects came in second with $43.7 billion, while commercial center projects ranked third with $29.1 billion.

In 2008, 23 Turkish firms were in the list of top 250 contractors in the world, according to the Engineering News Record, which is a leading magazine specializing in the contracting sector; the number of Turkish firms rose to 40 by 2016, seven of which were among the top 100 while for the first time two Turkish firms ranked in the top 50 companies with revenues more than $3 billion.

The total and average amounts of projects undertaken by Turkish contractors during the July 2008-2017 period are as follows (figures represent millions of dollars):