volume 7 issue 30 - the special europe issue / germany - austria

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Publisher: TurkofAmerica, Inc.General Manager:Ömer Günefl – [email protected] d i t o r - i n - C h i e f: Cemil Ozyurt – [email protected] Director: Serdar fiahinPage Design: Sinem ErtaflEditor: Patricia Russo, Nancy Öztürk.Editor of Photography: Ada Köseda¤News Center: Ayfle Önal Zambo¤lu, Müge Mengü, Ali Ç›nar, Hande Sarantopoulos,Ilknur Gurdal Fieldhouse, Jennifer Eaton Gökmen,Melda Akasel, Ayhan Kay.Support Team: Halim Özyurt, Demet Cabbar, Sinan Ertu¤rul, Caner Aver, Cem fientürk, Y›ld›z Özcan.Advising Committee:Ali Günertem, Egemen Ba¤›fl, Ferhan Geylan,Güney Adak, G. Lincoln McCurdy, Mahmut Topal,Mehmet Ali Özkan, Mehmet Çelebi, Tolga Ürkmezgil.

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1 4 THE ROLLING MILL SUPPLIER FOR STEEL MILLS: GERD WOLFF Gerd Wolff works with many iron and steel factories, among which are the world giants. Bekir Sunman, a Turkishentrepreneur who joined up with Klaus Konrad to purchase Gerd Wolff in 1998.

1 6 GERMANY PRODUCES AND EMS TRANSPORTSEMS, which handles most of the overland transportation between Germany and Iran, was founded by businessman fieref T›rafl in 1985. EMS employs approximately 200 people in the transportation sector.

2 6 THE TURKISH FOOD GIANT OF GERMANY Baktat was established in 1986 by the brothers Mustafa, Kadir, Ali, H. ‹brahim, and Muharrem Baklan. Mustafa Baklan, the second son of Ad›güzel Baklan – a Turk who came to Germany to work in a foundry – was only 16 in 1972 when he came to Germany.

4 6 BERLIN: THE CITY THAT INTRODUCED DONER TO THE WORLD Remzi Kaplan, President of Kaplan Doner, is one of the businessmen who discovered East Berlin after the fall of the wall.

4 8 GERMANY’S NEW JEWS: TURKS It all began with an article penned by Prof. Faruk fien, Director of the German Turkey Study Center Foundation, entitled, “Europe’s New Jews.”

5 4 THE THIRD SIEGE OF VIENNA Turkish entrepreneurs in Vienna, the capital of Austria, focus mainly on the wholesale foods and gastronomy industries, just as their cousins in Germany do. Do & Co Restaurants and Catering, Etsan, Orient, and Hürpafl are some of the leading Austrian Turkish companies.

6 4 THE LARGEST TURKISH FOOD COMPANY IN AUSTRIA Macro Group, which was founded by Hüseyin Ünal, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Macro Group, has 13 supermarkets in Vienna, varying between 600-1200square meters in size, as well as three furniture stores.

6 6 THE MAN WHO INTRODUCES CEYLON TEA TO EUROPEAN MARKETSOrient, under its own brand name, provides all European markets, Austria being first on the list, with every kind of dried food. In 1986 Bakan became the first businessman to import Ceylon tea to Europe.

6 8 AUSTRIA’S VEGETABLE & FRUIT KING Presently, the Onur Group companies owned by Haydar Güner are Austria’s number one vegetable-fruit import dealers.

7 0 WEDCO: THE INDUSTRIAL PRECISION CUTTING TOOL Wedco High Quality Tooling, established by Edip Bay›z›tl›o¤lu in 1991, controls 10% of the Austrian market inproduction of precision cutting tools and dies.

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For the past three years wehave been regularly publis-

hing special European editionsof our TURKOFAMERICAmagazine, giving us the oppor-tunity to test the pulse of theEuropean world of businessand commerce. By meetingwith Turkish representativesfrom the worlds of business inthe USA and in Europe we ha-ve also had the chance to seeand experience some of the dif-ferences between the “old” andthe “new” world.

This edition has allowed us toconduct our own research andobservations and thus to com-pare and contrast the US andGermany. Here’s some of whatwe discovered:

• While people in Germanyseem to live to work, Ameri-cans are more likely to work tolive.

• Foreigners living in Ger-many are perceived as beingoutsiders who upset the balanceof the country and as peoplewho do not integrate into thecountry. In the USA foreignersare seen as people whose diffe-ring cultures enrich the co-untry.

• The welfare system in Ger-many and the opportunities it

provides can easily be taken ad-vantage of. The USA doesn’teven have a welfare system thatpeople can abuse.

• Even fourth generationmigrants in Germany are seenas being “foreigners.” In theUSA the second generation sonof a Kenyan immigrant caneven be nominated for the hig-hest office in the land.

• While the Italians introdu-ced pizza to the Americans,thus saving them from starving,the Turks brought döner to theGermans, providing the nou-rishment for of a healthy gene-ration of Germans. Turks playa critical role in the food sectorin Germany.

• While a Turk who immigra-ted to the US in 1990 has beco-me the owner of a companythat brings in 10-20 milliondollars each year, many Turkswho immigrated to Germany inthe 1960s still haven’t learnedthe procedures for setting up acompany.

• Germans treat the Turksthat live in their country muchlike the Americans treat theMexicans who live in theirs.The first thing an Americanthinks of when hearing theworld “Mexico” is Taco Bell,

TurkofAmerica • 07

while when the Germans thinkof Turks they immediatelythink of döner.

• When we meet with a Ger-man politician the conversationalmost immediately turns to thesubject of integration and theproblems faced by immigrants.When we speak with an Ameri-can politician the conversationis generally about Medicare,Social Security, Iraq and Afgha-nistan.

• Turks who have lived inGermany for forty years andare still not German citizenstend to be proud of this fact,while Turks living in the Stateswant to become citizens as soonas possible.

• You pay the same money itwould cost to go by train fromHamburg to Cologne in Ger-many to fly from New York toMiami in the US on a 3 hourflight.

• Baggage carts at the Düssel-dorf Airport are free, while itwill cost you 3 dollars to use acart in New York.

• If your car breaks down inGermany you can communica-te with the repair truck driverin English, while in the USA thebus driver who drives you ho-

me may not know any English.

• Speed limits on the Auto-bahn can be effortlessly brokenin Germany, while speeding inthe US and not getting caughtby the cops takes a whole lot ofeffort.

• High school graduates inGermany all speak enoughEnglish to get by, whereas highschool graduates in the US maynot even be able to point outGermany on a world map!!

• You can meet your friendsin Germany at the train stationand drink until you are all sizz-led. You can only do this in yo-ur dreams in the States.

• While it is considered nor-mal in Germany for a police of-ficer to ask to see your identifi-cation papers, whether at thestation or on the street, otherthan at the airport, you are al-most never asked to hand overa passport in the US.

• Trains in Germany will ta-ke you to even the most distantcorners of the country, while inthe States you cannot leave ho-me without your private car.

• In Germany as a tourist yo-u can only stay in Germany forthe period of your ticket. In theStates the officials on duty atthe entry points decide howlong you can stay.

• Germans you happen tomeet on the road are pleasedwhen you speak to them inEnglish. Americans speak onlyEnglish so they simply assumethat you will as well. œ

Cemil Özyurt [email protected]

FROM EDITOR

SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEENGERMANY AND THE USA


profession during the course ofhis practical training in a hospitalin 1989.

He says that although nursing isnot popular among males, hethought it was appropriate forhim and decided to make it hisp r o f e s s i o n .Çak›r, upon completing trainingin nursing in 1993, started towork in the emergency section

and five years later, in 1999, ope-ned his own nursing care centercalled Pflegezentrum Çak›r He-alth Center. The inclusion ofnursing care insurance in the so-cial system by the German go-vernment had a significant effecton Çak›r’s initiative. Under thenew law, the government sup-ports the home care of patients.

There are approximately 10,000nursing care centers in Germany.They send nurses to homes of pe-ople who need care. There areonly five nursing care centersowned by Turkish people. Thesecenters, other than Çak›r’s in Bö-nen, near Dortmund, are in Gel-senkirchen, Essen, Hamburg andBerlin. The amounts covered bythe patients’ insurance and theircategories are designated as first,second and third class by the go-vernment. The patients requiringcare for 45, 90, 180 minutes or

longer per visit are considered tobe in the first, second and thirdgroups, respectively. The insu-rance of patients in these groupsis charged 420, 980 and 1470Euro per month, in that order.

The Pflegezentrum Çak›r HealthCenter, with 33 nurses, offersservices to 80 patients, 10 ofwhom are children and two ofwhom need critical care. Çak›rstates that in a country where 2.7million Turkish people reside itshould be possible to increase thenumber of nursing care centersand the investors should be inte-rested in and supportive of thisendeavor.

THERE IS A NEED FOR NURSING HOMESNo matter how contradictory toTurkish customs and traditionsthe idea of a nursing home is,there is an ever-growing need forthem in Germany and there areno active Turkish nursing homesas of yet. Çak›r states that effortsare underway.to open one for100 patients and adds, “TheTurkish community in Germanyhas not opened its own schools,hospitals and nursing homes andthus, has no experience in thisrespect. We want to initiate aproject for a nursing home andset a model by bringing togetherpeople who have set their heartson such an endeavor.” It is alsoplanned to extend the premisesand have a section for short-termcare with a 20-patient capacity.The project is expected to costbetween 3-5 million. The Ger-man government provides 2012Euro for each person being takencare of in a nursing home. Çak›rcompletes what he has to say bypointing out that “None of ushas any experience in this type ofan enterprise, but we have theknowledge and capability to beable to accomplish it.” œ

Bönen, Germany – The Tur-kish immigration to Ger-

many started with the signing ofan agreement in 1961. The mo-ve, which had a slow pace in thebeginning, increased as per ar-rangement between Turkey andthe European Economic Com-munity in 1963. While there we-re 6800 Turkish people living inGermany in 1961, with the arri-val of new immigrants the num-ber went up to over 1 million in1975 and climbed to over 2 mil-lion in 1998. Presently, the Tur-kish population has reached 2.7million with continuing immig-ration involving arrival of famili-es and marriages.

Those who arrived in the co-untry in 1960’s in their youth arenow over the age of 70. Amongthe first arrivals there are now95,000 people at the age of reti-rement.

With the aging of a generation,the need for organizations in dif-ferent sectors that provide serviceto the Turkish population hasbeen increasing. Among these thenursing homes and nursing carecenters are of utmost priority.

Presently, there is no nursing ho-me run by a Turkish administra-tion in Germany. The only activenursing home that offers servicesunder the name of a “TurkishNursing Home” is in Berlin-Kre-uzberg and is run by Germans. Ithas 155 beds, opened in January2007 and changed its name toTurkish Nursing Home after oney e a r .

Kemal Çak›r is one of the youngentrepreneurs who is aware ofthe need to fill the gap in this sec-tor. Çak›r, who was born in1971 in Germany, decided tochoose the care of the elderly as a

KEMAL CAKIR

12 • TurkofAmerica

There are approximately 10,000 nursing care centers in Germany. They send nurses to homes of peoplewho need care.

THE NEW FAVORITE OF INVESTORS: NURSING HOMES

Kemal Çak›r is one of the young entrepreneurs who isaware of the need to fill the gap in nursing sector.


for iron and steel factories.The company gets its namefrom its German founder. It isestimated that the number ofcompanies worldwide that arespecialized in this field is aro-und 20 and the machines ma-nufactured by Gerd Wolff areworth 1.5 -10 million Euro.

Hagen, Germany – Hagen, si-tuated in the North Rhine-

Westphalia district in Germany,15 km south of Dortmund, is acity mentioned in history booksfor its important role in metalworking. The history of this par-ticular sector in the city datesback to the 15th century.

have the old production plantsor its previous capacity any-more, it is still possible to co-me across iron and steel facili-ties in the city. Gerd Wolff, acompany that has been activesince 1954, is known for itsproduction of cold and hotrolling mills and spare parts

At present, the city of Hagen,which grew and flourishedwith development of coal,iron and steel industry in the19th century, is the 37th lar-gest city in Germany, with apopulation of 200,000 people.

Even though Hagen does not

GERD WOLFF


THE ROLLING MILL SUPPLIER FOR STEEL MIL L S :GERD WOLFF

Bekir Sunman, a Turkish entrepreneur who joined up withKlaus Konrad to purchase Gerd Wolff in 1998.

Gerd Wolff works with many iron and steel factories, amongwhich are the world giants.


Bekir Sunman, a Turkish en-trepreneur who joined upwith Klaus Konrad to purc-hase Gerd Wolff in 1998, hastransformed the factorywhich was about to go out ofoperation into a trademarkcommodity. Gerd Wolff hasthe special privilege of produ-cing machinery and equip-ment as per financial capabi-lities of buyers. Generally,the acid equipment able to beafforded only by large com-panies at the expense of 15-20 million Euro is availablefrom Gerd Wolff for 4-5 mil-lion Euro, thanks to their de-signers and producers. Sun-man states that due to thisthey receive many ordersfrom mid-line firms. The or-ders in Germany are delive-red within 12-15 months.

Prior to his purchase of GerdWolff, Sunman, who came toGermany as a student at theage of 19, graduated univer-sity with a degree in mechani-cal and welding engineeringand then worked as a seniorexecutive at Firma Pol, aKöln based company whichproduced façade materials.Sunman is still the holder ofthree patents for façade mate-rials.

The boss of Firma Pol, whichhas 15 different branches,even though originally unwil-ling, made an agreement withSunman on the condition thathe train two staff memberson half salary. Sunman, whosustained his relationshipwith the former boss for 3 ye-ars after buying Gerd Wolff,points to the significance ofthis relationship, which is ba-sed on mutual trust. Sunmankept four welders over 75 ye-ars of age in the companywithout forcing them to reti-re. He expresses the great ne-ed for trained personnel.

Sunman had his first business

experience with the SunmanGmbH cleaning companywhich he founded while still astudent at the university. Inaddition to this company,which is still in operation,Sunman owns three differentfirms. Presently, he works inpartnership with Konrad inFirma Pol and attributes hissuccess in business to hisprinciples and determination.Sunman and his partner Kon-rad started production atDüzce in Turkey last year un-der the name Gerd Wolff Ma-


kina (Gerd Wolff Mechanics)and they currently employ 85employees at a total of fourc o m p a n i e s .

Gerd Wolff works withmany iron and steel factories,among which are the worldgiants of Hindistanl› Mittal(Mittal of India) and Ere¤liand Kardemir in Turkey. Theproduction center in Hagencovers 3000 square meters ofland, but the businessmanemphasizes the fact that theyhardly fit into it. The com-

pany has another 2000 squa-re meter installation used forassembling. The BolenderM a s c h i n e n k o n s t r u k t i o nGmbH (BKM), which Sun-man annexed to his companyin 2003, designs mill standsfor cold rolling and cut-to-length, slitting and packaginglines for steel factories. Theyoung boss says that due toadvance orders the companyis at its maximum capacityand cannot take orders forthe next two years. In additi-on, the KKS company manu-factures tool sets and drillingproducts for machining.

Gerd Wolff, which exported1.5 million Euro worth ofequipment from the companyand started manufacturing inTurkey in 2007, expects thevalue of exports to be around3 million Euro at the end ofthe present year. The globalturnover of four companiesin Turkey, Gerd Wolff, BKM,KSS, and Gerd Wolff, is a p-proximately 20 million Euro.

Turks working in Sunman’scompany represent about 5%of the total of his workforce.According to Sunman, this isdue to the difficulty of fin-ding qualified technical per-sonnel. Despite the languagedisadvantage, many techni-cally qualified and talentedPoles work for the company.

Sunman tells us that so farthey have been able to resolvemany problems associatedwith machinery or partswhich used to have to wait50-60 weeks to be repaired.At one point they fixed a six-meter long crankshaft of aship which broke down whilecarrying cargo. The crank-shaft was sent to them by aspecial airplane. And he adds:“Such accomplishments makeme get more pleasure out ofmy work and I feel extremelyh a p p y . ”œ

:

Bekir Sunman with his partner Klaus Konrad.


fiEREF TIRAfi


GERMANY PRODUCESAND EMS TRANSPORTS

EMS employs approximately 200 people in the transportation sector.

EMS, which handles most ofthe overland transportation

between Germany and Iran,was founded by businessman

fieref T›rafl in 1985.

Turk Of America 22-23-24 8/5/08 3:03 PM Page 2

Dormagen, Germany- Accor-ding to data from the Ger-

man Federal Statistics Bureau,Germany’s exports in the firstthree months of 2008 reached379.1 billion dollars. Thiswas 21.4% more than the last

three months of 2007.

The dramatic rise in Ger-many’s export volume fromyear to year has also led to anincrease in transportation de-m a n d s .


Germany, which exports every-where in the world, transportsits goods mostly by overlandroutes and railways to nearbycountries. One of the largetransport companies in Ger-many is the EMS InternationaleSpedition Und TransportGmbH.

EMS is located in Hackenbro-ich, a district of Dormagen witha population of 9,000, which islocated in the center of Düssel-dorf, Cologne and Möncheng-ladbach.

EMS, which handles most of theoverland transportation betwe-en Germany and Iran, was fo-unded by businessman fieref T›-rafl in 1985. The initials standfor the first letters of Emanuel,Michael and fieref. When Ema-nuel and Michael withdrew, thecompany was left to fieref T›rafl.

T›rafl, a businessman from K›r-flehir who came to Germany in1972, started to work in 1976.He says, “I sacrificed myself be-cause I am the oldest member ofmy family.”

Initially, the company began totransport with leased tractor-trailors. EMS’s business capa-city enlarged when it began tocollaborate with Rhenus Logis-tics in 1986, one of the largesttransport companies in Ger-many. T›rafl, who paid a visit toRhenus on November 14, 1986,was able to transfer the trans-portation rights to carry merc-handise between Germany andTurkey and Iran to EMS. Hecan remember this date verywell, because it was his birt-hday. The business granted toT›rafl by Rhenus, more or less asa birthday gift, enabled the busi-ness volume of EMS to grow ra-pidly.T›rafl who that year had ahired 60-truck fleet, was able topurchase his first tractor-trailorin the fourth month of 1991.Presently, EMS runs a total of500 trucks, 100 of which are

owned by the company.

MOROCCO AND SPAIN, NEW M A R K E T SWhen transportation to Iran,which initially was being carriedout by 500 trucks, decreased to50, it became evident that thecompany had to search for newmarkets. With this, EMS startedoverland transport to Moroccoand Spain in addition to Iran.The new overland routing toMorocco includes every cornerof the country. EMS employsapproximately 200 people inthe transportation sector.

T›rafl, who also entered into theconstruction sector with the Ar-t› company eight years ago, ope-rates residential and businessconstruction jobs in Turkey andGermany. EMS has a main of-fice in Istanbul, as well as inG e r m a n y .

The large fleet of the EMS trans-ports 288,000 tons of freightper year. T›rafl claims that theyare the largest Turkish transportcompany in Germany. He po-ints out that Turkish companiesown the largest transportationfleet in Europe and highlightsthe fact that the membership ofTurkey in the European Unionis of significant importance forthe transportation sector. As amatter of fact, while in previousyears Turkish drivers could dri-ve tractor-trailors with Germanlicence plates, now Germanyhas banned the driving of truckswith German licence plates byTurkish drivers. EMS is in theprocess of establishing a com-pany in Bulgaria to surmountsuch difficulties.

The overland transportation bu-siness in Germany is growing anaverage of 10% every year, inspite of attempts to diminish itscontribution to transportationin general. T›rafl believes thatdue to Germany’s growing ex-port volume, it is impossible tostop this growth. œ

Turk Of America 22-23-24 8/5/08 3:03 PM Page 3

port machine parts and fo-odstuffs from Germany toIran and Iraq. However, af-ter a while they gave up thisbusiness as it did not provevery profitable.

The last trade attempt ofBaklan brothers, which hadto do with foodstuffs, wasthe establishment of BakKardefller Gmbh. The olderbrother Halil Baklan went toTurkey to investigate thepossibilities in the food sec-tor. They rented a depot andbegan to transport Turkishfoodstuffs to German mar-kets. In 1988, they set up aplant in Sungurlu, Çorum to

Mannheim, Germany –In Germany, Baktat, a

company that produces anddistributes ready foodstuffs,is known to be the largestTurkish food company in theethnic market. Baktat sells1600 different products, has12 companies and nearly1300 employees, of whom130 are in Europe. Exclusiveof the Turkish markets, Bak-tat owns close to 12 thou-sand meters of shelf spacethroughout Europe.

Baktat was established in1986 by the brothers Musta-fa, Kadir, Ali, H. ‹brahim,and Muharrem Baklan. Since

Vegetable and Fruit MarketHall, where he did everythingfrom carrying crates tounloading, packaging andwrapping.

When his older brother Haliland younger brother Muhar-rem came to Mannheim in1973, the number of peopleworking in the family wentup to three. The threebrothers started their firstserious business in 1981when they bought a tractortrailer truck from a Dutchtransport company with the25,000 German marks theyhad saved between them.They used this truck to trans-

1991 it has been drawing at-tention in Turkey, particu-larly with its modern instal-lations and production-ori-ented investments. Baktat,which has its head office inMannheim, Germany, pre-sently has production plantsin Manisa, ‹zmir, Çorum andB u r s a .

Mustafa Baklan, the secondson of Ad›güzel Baklan – aTurk who came to Germanyto work in a foundry – wasonly 16 in 1972 when hecame to Germany. In 1973he started to work as a labo-rer in the German firmErwin-Fehl in Mannheim’s

MUSTAFA BAKLAN


THE TURKISH FOOD GIANT OF GERMANY

Mustafa Baklan, the second son of Ad›güzelBaklan – a Turk who came to Germany towork in a foundry – was only 16 in 1972when he came to Germany.

Baktat was established in 1986 by the brothers Mustafa, Kadir, Ali, H. ‹brahim, and Muharrem Baklan


package dry legumes. Thebrothers first directed theirmarketing of dry foodstuffs,such as chickpeas and lentils,as well as canned foods, toGermany, but in time follo-wed this with exports to ot-her European countries aswell.

The Baklan brothers, wholost their brother MuharremBaklan in a traffic accidentin 1992, still continue thebusiness; Mustafa and KadirBaklan in European markets,Halil in Turkey and Ali Bak-lan in the USA.

Baktat Canned Foods inGemlik which was put incommission in 1995 produ-ces all kinds of canned foods,pickles, olives and preserves.

SERVICE MEDALThe contributions of theBaklan brothers to theTurkish economy and theirperformance in the Europeanfood sector were deemedworthy of the State ServiceMedal for Superior Servicesin 2000 and they alsoreceived, in the same year,the Gold Star Award oft h e Spanish B.I.D. Group


and the Global QualityCertification. Mustafa Baklan attributesthe secret of their success toeffective structuring and go-od evaluation of the market.He lays emphasis on the Tur-kish character: “Turks aregenerally practical people,but they have difficulty inputting this into action. Wecombined German businessdiscipline with the practical

Turkish mind.” Baklan statesthat they had also tried theirluck, unsuccessfully, in thetextile and confection sectorsand now plan to focus on or-ganic food products. Baklanbrothers sell under trade na-mes other than Baklat, suchas Kervan and Buket, as well,and their products in theUSA sell under the names ofBaktat Foods, Inc and Dolp-hin International, LLC. œ


people of other nationalities.The enormous difficulties fa-ced in getting a visa serve toisolate Turkish people, whohave tended to follow Euro-pe’s example since the begin-ning of the Republic, from theWest. The elimination of visabarriers that hinder interna-tional exchange of ideas sho-uld be a priority for Turkishforeign affairs. Turkey shouldbe given scope for its activitiesand should be given the sameadvantages as those of themember countries. œ

The votes of France andHolland against the Euro-

pean Constitution showedhow far the European Unionis from its goal of being uni-ted in a similar manner as theUnited States of America, andthe controversy over Easternexpansion in 2005 and 2007has inflamed the arguments.The communication problemsand the attitude of the Euro-pean Union, which is compo-sed of 27 countries and has23 official languages, are issu-es frequently made the topicof humor.

Recently published are the re-sults of an investigation thatcasts light on the frequentlymentioned differences in eco-nomical levels and standardsof life, as well as the socio-cultural gap between the Eastand the West, the two diffe-rent worlds of the old conti-nent that have existed in thesame geography for centuries.Recent surveys published un-der the title of “InterculturalDialogue“ associated with the”Eurobarometer“, a series ofsurveys carried out to moni-tor public opinion in the Eur-poean Union, reveal the diffe-rences between the nationsthat are candidates for mem-bership and the discrepanciesexpected in living under thesame roof with them.

In surveys carried out throug-hout the 27 member countriesof the European Union, mem-bers were asked if they had ma-de personal or visual contactwithin the previous week withpersons from different ethnicorigins and religions or withanyone from other member or

Latvia (23%). Those who op-pose Turkey’s membership inthe European Union based onreligious and cultural differen-ces should once more evaluatethese results carefully.

If this survey were made inTurkey what would the resultbe? Naturally, this is a diffi-cult question to answer. TheTurkish people who have beenliving more or less in tunewith different cultures formany centuries would be ex-pected to converse easily with

non-member countries. In 15different countries of the Euro-pean Union, the highest ratioof people involved in social di-alogue with persons from diffe-rent ethnic origins was in theUnited Kingdom (64%) andIreland (64%), with lowest ra-tios being in Portugal (36%),Finland (40%) and Italy (44%). As for contact with persons ofdifferent religious affiliations,the United Kingdom (63%)was number one and Austria(58%) number two. The lowestratios for contact with peopleof different religions were fo-und in the Northern Mediterra-nean countries of Greece(24%), Portugal (28%), Italy(35%) and Spain (36%).

Intercultural dialogue seemsto be at the lowest level in the12 countries that joined theEuropean Union after the ex-pansion of the European Uni-on to Eastern countries. Inthese countries, which exhibita more introverted attitude,the ratios of people who havebeen in contact with people ofother countries with differentreligious affiliations and eth-nic origins were found to be22-30%, with the lowest rati-o being in Poland (22%). Onthe other hand, in Lithuaniacontact with people of otherethnic origins is close to valu-es in the Western Europeancountries (56%). A similarpicture is obtained with res-pect to contact with people ofdifferent religious affiliations,with the highest ratio beingobserved in Slovakia (44%),while the lowest percentagesof dialogue with people of ot-her religious affiliations is fo-und in Estonia (19%) and

O P I N I O N


TWO BANKS OF EUROPE UNABLE TOCOME TOGETHER

Cem fientü[email protected]


THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE TURKISH-GERMAN BUSINESSMENASSOCIATION Bahattin Kaya – Kaya ReisenG m b HRemzi Kaplan - Kaplan Döner-produktionDiyap Sakall› – Concept VerlagM. Cevdet Öznacar – WIBUSteueeberatung GmbHHüsnü Özkanl› – Deutscher RingSuat Bak›r – Oyak Anker Bank Ahmet Ersöz – General SecretaryEmre Kiraz – EKCON Mana-gement Consultants GmbHAdnan Öz – San Marco Risto-rante PizzeriaNihat Sorgeç – BWK Bildung-swerk in KreuzbergMehmet Ali Dönmez – Rosent-haler Gastronomie GmbHœ

Berlin, where the populationof Turkish emigrants living

outside of Turkey is most dense,also has the oldest Turkish soci-ety for businessmen in Ger-many. The society, which wasfounded by 28 Turkish busi-nessmen in April 1996 underthe name of the Berlin Bran-denburg Society of Turkish-German Businessmen, todayhas 380 members. It is the voiceof approximately 9000 Turkishbusiness establishments in andaround Berlin. The number ofGerman members constitutesabout 10% of the whole.

In 2006, the number of Tur-kish business establishments inBerlin, small and large, were

borate on projects with compe-tent bodies of the Assembly,Senate, Municipality, Chamberof Industry and Trade, Educa-tional Institutions and other es-tablishments in Berlin-Bran-denburg on topics of concernfor their members and the Tur-kish community.Kaplan, who was elected chair-man at the meeting of the gene-ral assembly two years ago,collected 147 votes with his te-am while Nihat Sorgeç, the ot-her candidate, received 82 vo-tes. Kaplan states that since thiswas the choice of his friends, hewill serve in the administrationfor another two years, duringwhich time he intends to keephis promises.

around 6800. According to da-ta gathered by the BerlinChamber of Commerce (IHK),the annual revenues of these es-tablishments amounted to a to-tal of 3.5 billion and they pro-vided employment for over29,000 people. Remzi Kaplan, a businessmanwho is the founder and the pre-sent chairman of the society,states that they serve as a brid-ge between the two communiti-es of the business world. Hesays that the responsibilities ofthe society are to support Tur-kish employers, to present vi-ews on economic, poltical, so-cial and cultural topics and toprovide effective services. Kap-lan comments that they colla-

TDU BERLIN


THE VOICE OF THE TURKISH BUSINESS WORLD IN BERLIN

TDU board members are together.

It is the voice of approximately 9000 Turkish business establishments in and around Berlin.


physical therapy centers inGermany, supervised by theGerman Ministry of Health,are widely distributed andfurnish services to many pati-ents. Özdemir states thatTurkish patients particularlyprefer a therapist who speakstheir native tongue becausethey feel more relaxed.

People who visit the thera-pist’s office are mostly thosewho suffer from back or kne-e pain. The average durationof therapy is 45 minutes.Özdemir tells us that afteropening the center she conti-nuously attended courses toupdate her knowledge andskills. One needs to get athree-year professional t r a i-ning in order to become aphysical therapist in G e r-many. Such an educationhas to be financed. One beco-mes a physical therapist atthe expense of 18 thousandEuro.

Özdemir tells us that one ofthe most important reasonsfor her becoming a physicaltherapist was her love ofsports. Ayfle Özdemir wasborn in 1975 as the fourthdaughter of a family with se-ven children and her fathercame to Germany as a wor-ker in 1969. Özdemir’s fa-mily are originally from An-kara and apparently none ofthe other family members isinterested in this profession.Nevertheless, Özdemir tellsus that she wanted to set agood example not merely forthe members of her family,but for all young Turkish fe-male entrepreneurs.œ

I t is possible to meet peoplein every kind of profession

among the Turkish populati-on living in Germany. The se-cond generation of Turks areinclined to prefer areas requi-ring more specialization ascompared to other sectors;having the advantage of be-ing fluent in two languages,they are able to move to-wards different professionalareas. Ayfle Özdemir, whothree years ago put in com-mission the first Turkishphysical therapy center inDortmund, addresses a widegroup of people. She has theadvantage of offering multi-lingual services through herstaf,f composed of Palestini-ans, Bosnians and Poles.

The young entrepreneur emp-hasizes that 90% of her cus-tomers are immigrants. Follo-wing the opening of BalanceePhysiotherapie, two otherTurkish physical therapistsfollowed Özdemir’s lead inDortmund in the followingyears. Özdemir, who provi-des physical therapy for ne-arly 40 patients per day, sta-tes that they have providedservices to over 2000 pati-ents in three years. The feeper session for private pati-ents is 45 Euro and for thosewith insurance it is 35 Euro.

Özdemir’s great dream is toexpand what she started as asmall business by collabora-ting with other physical the-rapists. Actually, the Balan-cee Physiotherapie did startto work in cooperation withone of the large polyclinics inDortmund last July. The

BALANCEE PHYSIOTHERAPI


THE FIRST TURKISH PHYSICALTHERAPIST IN DORTMUND

Ayfle Özdemir wasborn in 1975 as thefourth daughter of afamily with sevenchildren.

Ayfle Özdemir, who provides physical therapy fornearly 40 patients per day,

states that they have provided services to over2000 patients in three years.


YAYLA


THE MARKET’S YOGURT LEADER

Cemal Gürkan, the operating manager of Yayla-Türk GmbH.

Over 180 dairy and meat items produced by Yayla-Türk GmbH, which was established in 1984.


Krefeld, Germany – “It allstarted with the belief

that it would be possible toproduce in Germany thoseproducts that Turkish immig-rants would enjoy.” This ishow Zekeriya Yasemin, thefounder of Yayla, starts to tellthe story of the Yayla corpo-r a t i o n .Over 180 dairy and meatitems produced by Yayla-Türk GmbH, which was es-tablished in 1984, are foundin Turkish kitchens all overEurope and particularly inG e r m a n y .

Since meat and dairy productscould not be imported fromTurkey in accordance withEuropean standards, it beca-me necessary that these beproduced in European coun-tries. The food industry wasone of the initial areas of inte-rest for Turkish entrpreneursbased in Germany. Today,companies producing driedfoods, meat, and dairy pro-ducts for the market serve ne-arly four million Turks andpeoples of other nations whoenjoy a similar cuisine. Besi-des Turkish grocery storesand markets, other large cha-in stores also provide Turkishfood products in their depart-ment stores to attract morecustomers.

According to the ResearchCenter Foundation of Turkey,based in Essen, Germany, the2.7 million Turks living inGermany spend approxima-tely 16 billion Euro annually.Most of this is expenditure onfood products. While the lar-ge Turkish food manufactu-rers in Germany such as Bak-tat, Efe F›rat, Yayla, Naml›,and Ege Türk produce a widerange of products, some othercompanies specialize more onspecific products. A survey byYayla-Türk carried outamong its own sellers indica-ted that the trade names best

known are Ege Türk,Yaylaand Gazi, in that order.WhileEge Türk Sausage and Gazicheese are well-known trade-marks, Yayla also producesthese items. However, it sho-uld be emphasized that thissurvey was not carried outwith scientific precision.

Cemal Gürkan, the operatingmanager of Yayla-TürkGmbH, told us that they arethe inventors of strained yo-gurt in Europe and Yaylaranks as the most-consumedebrand. He also emphasizesthat they sell 1000 tons of


Yayla yogurt, which is produ-ced in Luxemburg, permonth. Another field inwhich Yayla is most ambitio-us concerns white meat pro-d u c t s .

Gürkan, who has been wor-king at Yayla now for nearlynine years, says that last yearthe company, which followeda trend of healthy growth foryears, experienced a sluggishperiod. After graduating fromKabatafl Lyceé in 1968, oneof the longest-establishedschools in Istanbul, Gürkancame to Germany and studied

textile chemistry. Afterwardshe worked at the largest texti-le company in Krefeld for sixyears. Gürkan, who shared apast of 35 years with Zekeri-ya Yasemin, the owner ofYayla-Türk, started to workin the company upon Yase-min’s offer.

Gürkan describes the com-pany as being open to changeand states that the executivesare determined to accomplishtheir planned projects. Hehighlights the fact that theirefforts to develop mildewprotected packing for theirAlt›n Kaymak yogurt took 1.5years. He also reveals that thenumber of their products,which is presently 180, willsoon rise to 200 with newproduces to be introducedand they expect an increase inthe number of German custo-mers who now, thanks to tou-rism, appreciate the taste ofTurkish cuisine. According tostatistics, 4.2 million Ger-mans vacation in Turkeyevery year.

Gürkan notes that Yayla isnot the owner of factorieswhere yogurt and other pro-ducts are produced, but afterlong years of relationshipthey have become identifiedwith them. He adds, “If athird person were to make amuch better offer to the fac-tory that we deal with in Lu-xemburg, they would firstforward the offer to us.”

Yayla, which sells in Poland,Azerbaijan and Greece, ownswhite meat facilities in Istan-bul. There are 30 employeesat its Krefeld center and it al-so produces meat and dairyproducts under another tradename, Fulya. Gürkan addsthat they have some other tra-de names that are being reser-ved and are expected to showup in the market in the futu-r e . .œ


Avrasya GmbHBest Dönerproduktion GmbHBest KebabBilir DönerB i r k a nB o sBulut Döner ProduktionCagras ParadiesCan Döner ProduktionCanlar DönerCelik DönerChez AltunDem Döner GmbHDevran DönerDostlar GmbHEfe Döner ProduktionEfendi Döner ProduktionEroglu Döner GmbH und Co. KGErsko Meat e.K.E u r a - D ö n e rEuro Döner GmbH+Co. KGEuro Tec Döner ProduktionEurofood DistributionFlok Marketing GmbHGök GmbHGouvermet Döner Istanbul Döner ProduktionKalite Döner ProduktionKardelen Döner ProduktionKing GmbHKöyüm GmbHLezzet GmbHMercan DönerNamm DönerNatura La MediterraneaNefis-Et GmbHOrient International FoodÖzbek Tat GmbHÖzgüven Döner ProduktionÖztat Döner ProduktionÖztürk DönerP a m u k k a l ePasa Döner ProduktionPasa KebabPergamon GmbHPerk ImbissSahan Dönder ProduktionSahinler Dönerproduktion undFleischgroßhandel GmbHSedat KebabSnack Ali BabaSnack CappadoceSnack Efes EpinalStar Döner ProduktionStar Food CompanySultan EurofoodTeam Brothers GmbHYeni Kapadokya FleischwarenHerstellung GmbHœ

Döner, which rapidly spreadthrough European countries

with Germany in the lead, has sur-passed all fast food products andhas become a giant sector with itsproducers, sales points, restaurantsand consumers. In Germany thereare overall nearly 300 döner ma-kers. Around 30,000 döner stallsand restaurants employ 150,000employees. In Germany döner is known to beconsumed by more Germans thanTurks. The anticipated turnoverproceeds of döner is approximately4 billion Euro. The ever-increasingconsumption of döner, which isnow also popular in countries outsi-de Europe, brings with it certainsectoral problems that need to besurmounted. The generalization ofeach döner scandal in Germany andthe effects on the sector, in general,of the unfavorable image created bythe dishonest intent of some dealerscan only be overcome by sectorala w a r e n e s s .

The döner makers, acting with thisin mind, for the first time decided tocome together under the umbrellaof an organization in December2006 in an effort to be accepted asa professional body in Germany.Presently, 61 döner makers aremembers of the Döner Society Enter-prise Group. ‹smail Birol was appo-inted the General Secretary of the So-ciety in order for the business to beconducted in a professional manner. In Germany each sector which hasprofessional status acquires self con-trol, sets its own quality standardsand employs people trained in scho-ols in those professions. As anexample, while ice cream making isaccepted as a profession, the dönersector in Germany is not yet consi-

support from people. Alt›nsoy states that when they aregranted autonomy, they will be ableto employ 1000 workers in the dönersector. That is, 1000 workers whowill work in the duration betweenproduction of döner and its presenta-tion to customers will be able to startgetting training immediately. Alt›n-soy says, “We took the the path ofconsidering döner to be a profession.We have covered a significant distan-ce in two years and are still continu-ing to do so. Döner production shalldefinitely be accepted as a professionif we attend to it strongly.”

Another point of concern for dönermakers is that of unfair competition.Some makers employ savage efforts,violating rules of competition in thecommercial sense and thus unneces-sarily negatively affecting the sectoras a whole. The Döner Chamber hopes to over-come scientific and ethical inadequ-acies and wishes to develop a com-petitive mentality not from viewpo-int of costs, but in terms of quality,creativity and vision. Even if few innumbers, the sham production bysome makers is another matter ofconcern for the Döner Chamber.

THE CHAMBER OF DÖNER ENTREPRENEURSAga Döner Produktion Ali BabaArslan Kebap ProdukteArslan's Party Service Döner Kebab

dered to be a professional sector inspite of its large size, turnover andnumber of workers.

The döner makers united within theChamber of Döner Entrepreneursare lobbying to be accepted as a pro-fession. The döner makers, led byYunus Alt›nsoy, owner of Köln-ba-sed Avrasya Döner, are trying theirbest to establish an organization thatwould help prevent unfair competiti-on and sham production, and wouldhelp to overcome deficiencies in thenumber of representatives and staff.

It will take a long time for the orga-nization to get the approval of theGerman authorities and gain legalstatus. In this long process, in orderfor the organization to be grantedautonomy, it will be necessary thatthe trade associations, labor, andprofessional organizations acceptthe need for it to become a professio-nal field, that the members of theparliament adopt this idea in prin-ciple, that the concerned ministriescarry out the necessary work and in-troduce required legislations, andthat the omnibus act and implemen-tation clauses and regulations beprepared by the Federal and StateAssemblies. Even though the processseems to require a very long time,Alt›nsoy says that so far there hasbeen no adverse remarks from peop-le who are familiar with the topicand they seem to be getting a lot of

DONER SOCIETY ENTERPRISE GROUP


IF DÖNER WERE TO BE A PROFESSIO N !

Christian Möbius, Jürgen Hollstein and Franz-Josef Knieps, CDU members of theparliament from the province of North Rein Vestfalia, invited the authorizedpersonnel of the European Döner (pressed lamb roasted on a large vertical spit)Society to the State Parliament and spoke with Yunus Alt›nsoy, the Chairman of theSociety and ‹smail Birol, the General Secretary of the Society.

In Germany there areoverall nearly 300

döner makers. Around30,000 döner stalls

and restaurants employ150,000 employees.


the project financed by fundsfrom the European Union.

Upon DOG‹AD’s agreementto go along with the projectconducted by TAM, the twoorganizations converged inNovember 2007. Since DO-G‹AD has not completed itsstructuring as yet, it is not ac-cepting members at the mo-ment. However, its goal is toenroll 100 members by theend of 2009. Presently, studi-es on the organization’s laws,marketing, operations andactivities are underway.

DIVERSE ETHNIC ORIGINS The organization, which willbecome public following the-se efforts, will be the fruit ofa long-term project. The ad-ministrative board of DOG‹-AD is composed of ten peop-le. Two members are femaleand four are from countriesother than Turkey. In fact,they are people of diverseethnic origins from Ukraine,Greece and Korea.who live inDortmund.

The head of the organizationis Ersoy Sam, who works as alawyer in Dortmund. CanerAver, the official spokesmanof the organization and oneof the people endeavoring totransform DOG‹AD into aprofessional and effective or-ganization, emphasizes thattheir aim is not merely tobring Turkish business enter-prises together, but also towork in unison with peopleof other ethnic origins inDortmund, where 134,000such people live.

According to the organizatio-nal charter, aside from entrep-reneurs who live in Dortmund,people working in the munici-pality and banks, tradesmenor, in short, all legal personswho pay a monthly fee of 20Euro to the organization willbe accepted as members.

Dortmund, Germany -Dortmund, located in

the North Rhine-Westphaliadistrict of Germany, has apopulation of 587,800 and isthe seventh largest city in thecountry. It ranks 34th amongthe large cities of Europe andaccording to the 2005 censusresidents include 134,000(22.9%) immigrants.Thereare approximately 27,000Turkish people living inD o r t m u n d .

A total of 7.2 % of businessenterprises in the city are ow-ned by foreigners, of which23% are owned by Turks.The food, retail and servicecenters are the calling cardsfor 30% of Turkish businessowners in Dortmund.

The abundance of enterpriseswith ethnic origin broughtabout a need for solidarity inthe business world. TheDortmund Businessmen Or-ganization (DOGIAD), es-tablished in 1996, serves thegoal of strengthening ties inthe business world, as well asthe development of communi-cation and qualifications ofworkers.

ETHNIC ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTThe initial founding of theorganization was in 1996;however, since 2007 it hasbecome an active and profes-sional enterprise. The “Eth-nic Economical DevelopmentProject” in Dortmund, spon-sored by the Turkish Rese-arch Center (TAM), based inEssen, has served to put anew face on the activities ofDOGIAD. Yunus Ulusoy, theproject head of TAM, andCaner Aver, the project ma-nager, have facilitated the en-deavors of ethnic entreprene-urs by bringing them togetherwith DOGIAD to evaluatestudies carried out in Dort-mund within the context of

D O G I A D


O R G A NIZ A TION OFE T H NIC

E N T E R P RISES

DOGIAD board members aretogether.

The Dortmund Businessmen Organization(DOGIAD), established in 1996,

serves the goal of strengthening ties in the businessworld.


Aver also emphasizes the factthat one of the projects to beimplemented is the openingof professional training cen-ters in foreign enterprises tocontribute to training of per-sonnel. He states: “This waywe shall be able to integrateforign enterprises into theGerman economy.” Aver,who is the son of an immig-rant family from Adana, is agraduate of the departmentof geography and a personwho, by virtue of the projecthe has been working on, hasbeen able to establish warmrelations with many entrepre-neurs in Dortmund and its vi-cinity in the course of aboutthree years. Zafer Aktafl, amember of DOG‹AD, saysthat the organization has gai-ned new aspects throughAver’s endeavors. Aver voi-ces the feeling that they willbe a bridge between the Ger-man society and the people ofother ethnic origins. He emp-hasizes that they will particu-larly try to assist foreign tra-de for businesses which wantto work with Turkey andRussia.

DORTMUND IN NUMBERS- Among the business enter-prises in Dortmund 7.2% areof foreign origin. 23% areTurkish (the largest ethnicgroup) and 32% are Italian,Greek, Spanish and Portuge-se. 14% are from new EU co-untries and 31% are from co-untries of the former SovietUnion.

- 30% of Turkish enterpri-ses are in food, retail and ser-vice sectors.

- 71% of Turkish businesseshave full-time employees;that is, they are no longersingle-person enterprises.

- Nearly 33% employ German workers as well.

- 22.9% of the population isof foreign origin (accordingto 2005 census, 134,000 fo-reigners; total population:585,000)

- Nearly 27,000 carry Tur-kish passport. (People of fo-reign origins who are Ger-man citizens are not includedin the statistics)

- In Dortmund the sectorsthat stand out are IT, logis-tics, microsystem technology.

- In these three fields thereare 1400 businesses emplo-ying 37,000 people.

- 680 IT businesses emplo-yed 12,000 people (the lar-gest IT center is in KRV dis-trict)

- In Europe 10% of peopleworking in medical techno-logy live in Dortmund.

- The largest businesses are:Materna (software), Elmos(high tech, nanotechnology),


Wilo (worldwide pump maker), Thyssen Krupp (iron-steel).

- Dortmund harbor is thelargest canal harbor in E u r o p e .œ

Caner Aver, the projectmanager.


restaurant in Bonn in termsof concept and style.

The transfer of the capitalfrom Bonn to Berlin tookaway with it some of the cus-tomers of the Opera Restau-rant, but it has still maintai-ned its status and priority inthe culinary sector. The poli-

Bonn, Germany – Theword Bonn immediately

connotes the capital of WestGermany during the cold waryears, prior to the fall of theBerlin wall, and the birthpla-ce of Ludwig van Beethoven.Bonn, which was the capitalof Germany from 1949-1999,is a charming city with a

reaucrats and party leaders.This year, the place which ca-me to be known as thesymbol of the city celebratesits 20th year. The Opera Res-taurant, which was foundedby Müslüm Balaban, a busi-nessman, and has been mana-ged by Filiz Tosun for nearly14 years, is the only Turkish

2000-year long history and apopulation of 314,000, loca-ted 20 km south of Köln.

The Opera Restaurant, whichwas opened across from theOpera building during the ti-me when Bonn was the capi-tal city, was a popular mee-ting places for politicians, bu-

FILIZ TOSUN


THE STAR OF THE OPERA

Filiz Tosun

The Opera Restaurant has been managed by Filiz Tosun for nearly 14 years, is the only Turkishrestaurant in Bonn in terms of concept and style.


ticians who were regular cus-tomers of the restaurant havetried to carry their accusto-med taste to Berlin; in fact, itseems they have even searc-hed for an appropriate placefor the Opera Restaurant toopen another location. Ho-wever, the remoteness of Ber-lin has made it impossible.

TOSUN’S 27-PERSON TEAMFiliz Tosun, who came to Ger-many in 1969 to learn the lan-guage after completing herhigh school education in Is-tanbul, is a businesswomanwho has been able to survivefor a long time in that profes-sion. She comments, “I neverthought of gastronomy as aprofession; I had no interest init whatsoever. However, whenI started to learn I loved it andit became a part of me.”

Needless to say, the Operahas become a part of the per-formances and activities ofthe Bonn Opera. The organi-zational arrangements for pe-ople who come to see the per-formances of the Opera arecarried out by Filiz Tosunand her 27-person team. TheOpera Restauran,t which canaccommodate 550 people inopen and closed spaces, alsohas a bar inside the Operab u i l d i n g .

The restaurant has graduallyadopted, over two years, thenon-smoking regulation inclosed spaces which is enfor-ced in Germany and now is inthe process of annexing thespace next door with 100-person capacity, which beca-me available when the saunawhich was there went out ofbusiness. Tosun tells us thatthey were the first to start thebar business inside the Operabuilding, but apparently nowthere are four others in thev i c i n i t y .

The restaurant, which espe-

cially attracts German custo-mers, is famous for its coldappetizers. Filiz Tosun, whois the only female in the res-taurant, says,”In a way I feelvery much protected here.The staff never leaves meunattended. This is somet-hing which is very much ap-preciated by the customers asw e l l . ”

Tosun, who admits that herjob is her hobby and she lovesit, stresses the fact that they


entertain close to 100 custo-mers every day. In the restau-rant a meal costs an averageof 30 Euro per person. Thiscovers the appetizers and thewine as well. Tosum notesthat their prices are much lo-wer than the prices in Italianrestaurants downtown andadds, “When you consider thefinancial means of people inGermany you realize that itwould not be possible tocharge more for a meal.” Themost expensive main course

in the Opera is ‘tand›r’, whichcosts 14 Euro.

“OPERA IS LIKE MY CHILD”The people in Bonn eat out atleast once a week. Germans,who at one time never wentout after 6 p.m., have slowlyoutgrown this habit. TheOpera is one place which hasplayed a role in this process.The kitchen of the restaurantis open until 1 a.m..

Generally, restaurants frequ-ently change hands or go outof business. The price politicsof the Opera is most signifi-cant in its 20-year existenceunder the same management.Tosun points out that manybusinesses had to close whenthe capital was tranferredfrom Bonn to Berlin.

Tosun tells us that even tho-ugh she is in restaurant busi-ness she does not particularlylike to cook. She is more inte-rested in the presentation of ameal. She prefers to go to theItalian Halbedel Restaurantwhenever she goes out to eatin Bonn.

The Opera, surrounded by 12palm trees, has inspired peop-le with its demonstration thatthese kind of tress could begrown in Bonn. Tosun, whoowns a house in Antalya, thevacation paradise of Turkey,goes there every chance shegets and says, “The Operawith its palm trees has beenmy little Antalya.”

Tosun says that even thoughshe has been working as a ma-nager for many years, she ne-ver thought of having her ownplace and notes: “The Operais like my child, maybe that’sprobably why it never occur-red to me that I could start myown business.” Besides herchild, the Opera, the success-ful manager also has a 34-ye-ar old son named Burak.œ


from a two-wheeled cart inEast Berlin in 1989. The firstday he sold 15 kilos of döner.Sales increased day by day andreached 200 kilos per day.

When the quality of döner be-ing produced in the factory be-gan to deteriorate, Kaplan hadto start his own productionbusiness. He began to produce

Berlin, Germany – Someday when the history of

döner is written, Berlin willundoubtedly have a specialplace and significance. Döner,after its introduction in Tur-key, put its name on the mapfirst in Europe’s Berlin. Berlinranks as the European citywith the highest Turkish popu-lation—a group that tops

man citizens to West Ger-many, Berlin began to be thehost for new events.

Remzi Kaplan is one of the bu-sinessmen who discovered EastBerlin after the fall of the wall.Kaplan, who started out in tra-de by selling chickpeas and len-tils in neighborhood markets inAnkara, began to sell döner

200,000—and its district ofKreuzberg was the first placein Germany that gave Ger-mans a taste of doner. On November 9, 1989, withthe fall of the 46 km long wallthat had been erected by thedecision of the Eeastern Ger-man Parliament made on Au-gust 12, 1961 in an attempt toprevent the flight of East Ger-

KAPLAN DONER


B E R LIN: THE CITY THAT INTRODUCEDDÖNER TO THE WORLD

Remzi Kaplan,President of KaplanDoner.

Remzi Kaplan is one of the businessmen who discovered East Berlin after the fall of the wall.


döner under the trade nameKaplan Döner in a 250 squaremeter facility in 1990; as heputs it, “Even though I had noidea about how to make it.”

Other döner producers whofelt that they could snap at achance in the East Berlin mar-ket followed Kaplan. In ashort while 35 other dönerproducers showed up in themarket. While there were fewdöner producers and sellers inBerlin until 1996, now thereare 41 döner facilities and clo-se to 3000 stalls. At the pre-sent the greatest number ofdöner facilities in Europe arefound in Berlin, Hamburg be-ing second with 12 producers.

Kaplan says that their com-pany is one of the three com-panies that have played a sig-nificant role in introducing dö-ner to European countries ot-her than Germany. The othertwo are Karmez, owned byTütünbafl› brothers, which hasits main office in Frankfurt,and Birtat, owned by Ali Ha-tay, which has been in busi-ness since 1998 in Waiblingenin Southeastern Germany.

Kaplan, who owns threeplants in Berlin, Hanover, andHamburg remarks: “In Euro-pe döner was born in Berlinand from there spread to othercountries of the world.” Hetells us that he is the first dö-ner entrepreneur who introdu-ced it to the Dutch and Polishm a r k e t s .

Kaplan, who employs a total of165 people in his three plants,exports to 12 countries in theEuropean Union. The business-man Kaplan remarks that theyare attempting to maintain cer-tain standards in döner produc-tion and sales and so they planto require sale certificates in or-der to ensure that the sales areconducted under sanitary con-ditions. According to Kaplan:

“We will no longer allow dönersellers to sell it with a cigarettein hand.” The 48-year-oldKaplan has a son and two da-ughters who are all in dönerbusiness.

MEAT SCANDALS AND VICTIMSOne event that frequently cau-ses the German media and thedöner producers to butt headsis the identification of taintedmeat sales by döner producers.The tainted meat found inGerman Bruner company inJohanneskirchen near Munichin 2006 once more broughtthe German media and the dö-ner producers up against oneanother. Bruner, which soldthe spoiled meat to many com-panies in Europe that producemeat products, had pastednew labels over labels with ex-pired dates.

At the time, the Society of Eu-ropean Turkish Döner Produ-cers published a statement inwhich they criticised the asso-


ciation of tainted meat withdöner and the accusations di-rected towards döner produ-cers for what was the fault ofwholesale dealers.

In 2006, 100 tons of taintedmeat, a part of a total of 450tons of tainted meat importedto Germany, was confiscatedin the Bruner company, butthe rest could not be found atall. Based on supposition, dö-ner facilities were raided underauthority obtained from theprosecutor and one companyaccused of buying tainted me-at turned out to be KaplanDöner, who had to present allits invoices for the dates bet-ween June 1-October 21,2006. Remzi Kaplan says: “Ioffered to present Germanauthorities with invoices notmerely from June on, but fromJanuary 2006.”

The court case, the final hea-ring of which was to take pla-ce in May 2008, has stirred a

great deal of interest in Ger-many. Kaplan describes theevent with the followingwords: “On the day of the tri-al eight live TV broadcasters,five radio and 36 news repor-ters were waiting in the hall.As if a serial killer had beencaught...I thought that if therewas such an antagonistic cam-paign before the hearing, itshould be expected to be muchworse afterwards, and withmy lawyer we decided not togo to the hearing,” So, Kaplanwas fined 40,000 Euro for notattending the hearing.

Kaplan disputed the decisionand filed an appeal. He com-ments: “We were awarded theGold Medal in 2004, 2005and 2006 for the döner weproduced. I would not jeopar-dize my own name and the tra-de name of the company bybuying 4 tons of tainted meat.I never produce or sell any-thing which I, myself, and myfamily do not eat.”œ

Kaplan with Heide- Knake Werner, the minister forsocial policy in the Berlin State government.


ne. Ishak Alaton, the business-man, personally sent a hand-written note of support to theGerman Press.

The international outrage andNGO pressure forced the Foun-dation Board to seek out an ag-reement with Prof. fien. Follo-wing meetings, the North RhineWesphalia Minister of Assimila-tion Armin Lachet and Dr. FritzSchaumann, Chairman of theTurkey Study Centre, announcedthat they had reached an agree-ment.

The announcement went on tostate that Prof. fien’s contracthad been extended until the 31stof December 2008 and that hewould then head the GermanUniversity planned for Turkey.As of January 2009, Prof. fienwill head the German UniversityFoundation until 2010; the uni-versity is currently being set up inIzmir. This private university willbe entirely German speaking.Prof. Faruk fien expressed his de-light at the resolution of thestorm over his position.

During his temporary terminati-on, foundation staff had met andresolved to form a personnel de-legation to continue negotiationswith the authorities and enable agreater transparency of informa-tion. The closed ballot that washeld at the time appointed YunusUlusoy, TAM Foundation Eco-nomic Study and Applied Pro-jects Section Head, as personnelrepresentative.

TURKISH STUDIES CENTER F O U N D A T I O NFounded on the 1st of October1985 in Bonn as a partnershipbetween the Freudenberg Foun-dation and the German ScienceFoundation, the Turkish StudyCenter (TAM) started with astaff of three. Based in Essen, itnow it fields an expert workfor-ce of political scientists, sociolo-gists, economists, Islamic theolo-gians and ethnologists. œ

fien’s article, which appearedin Referans on the 19th of Ju-

ne 2008, forced him to stepdown from the directorship ofthe foundation he’d headed for23 years. The decision made bythe Board of the Foundation, Dr.Fritz Schaumann, Thomas Kufenand Prof. Dr. Heinz Jurger Axtamong them, was met by outra-ge by many Turks, Jewish orga-nisations and businessmen’s as-sociations in a number of coun-tries as well as Germany. In theface of such vocal reaction, theFoundation had little choice butto reinstate Prof. fien, who willstay in his position until the endof 2008.

This is how the story developed:Ishak Alaton, a leading TurkishJewish businessman, referred in anewspaper interview to the diffi-culties he and others had to con-tend with in the face of anti-semi-tism in the state apparatus. Prof.fien then wrote the article entitled“Europe’s New Jews” in an ef-fort to support Alaton and raiseawareness of the difficulties thebusinessman faced. fien stated inthe article, “We, as the Turks ofEurope, appreciate your impor-tance to this country. We, as thenew Jews of Europe, your5,200,000 companions in fate,are best placed to sympathisewith you. Do not allow the anti-semitic attitudes of certain quar-ters in Turkey get you down; we,the Turkish people, and the newJews of Europe, are standingright behind you.”

The article, originally written toexpress support for Turkish Jewsand published in a Turkish news-paper, was turned on its head un-der the pretext of ‘offending Jewsin Germany’. An announcementwas made to the effect that Prof.fien had been dismissed while hewas on holiday in Turkey. Ac-cess to his e-mail account wassuspended and he was barredfrom communicating with Foun-dation staff. The Foundation bu-ilding’s locks were changed. A

USA. NGOs in the USA, the As-sembly of Turkish-American As-sociations and the Federation ofTurkish American Associationsall published statements of pro-test. Jewish organisations in theUSA also expressed their convic-tion that the article did not aimto offend Jews and that the Fo-undation directors were out of li-

fait accompli had terminated hiscontract; but the support offeredfien by Jewish organisations inGermany and the USA, as wellas NGOs, forced the Foundati-on’s Board to retract.

The organized reaction, that be-gan with Turkish BGOs in Ger-many, reached all the way to the

GERMAN AGENDA


GERMANY’S NEW JEWS:T U R K S

It all began with an article penned by Prof. Farukfien, Director of the German Turkey Study Center

Foundation, entitled, “Europe’s New Jews.”


Paris, France- Since the1970’s, France has ran-

ked as another leading co-untry, in addition to Ger-many and the Netherlands,that has been attracting Tur-kish immigrants.In the time of the OttomanEmpire, following the forcedmigration in 1915, many Ar-menian Ottoman citizenssettled in France and Franceis renowned for being one ofthe countries with the largestpopulation from the Armeni-an diaspora.

Many students who are gra-duates of French schools inTurkey, such as Saint Benoit,Saint Pulcherie, Saint Joseph,Saint Michel, Notre Dame deSion, Galatasaray Lyceé andPierre Loti, have also come tolive in France. Turkish citi-zens in France, whose num-ber is estimated to be around500,000, mostly live in Paris,Alsace and Lorraine.

Turkish businessmen in Fran-ce have joined forces in twoseparate organizations: TheTurkish Businessmen Associ-ation of France and The Acti-ve Businessmen Associationof France (FATIAD).

Jean Erin, who studied adverti-sing and graphic design at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Stras-bourg, France after graduatingfrom Istanbul Saint MichelFrench Lyceé in 1977, is one ofthe Armenians living in Francewho is Turkish by birth.

In 1980, Erin started to workas advertisement and decora-tion head of two stores con-nected with France’s thirdlargest food industry com-

JEAN ERIN


“TRY TO WIN PEOPLE INSTEAD OF MONEY”“TRY TO WIN PEOPLE INSTEAD OF MONEY”

Jean Erin.

Turkish citizens in France, whose number is estimated to be around 500,000, mostly live in Paris, Alsace and Lorraine.


pany, and 10 years later, in1990, he was appointed toone of the same company’sstores in Paris.

Erin tells us that even thoughthe move from the provinces toa cosmopolitan city such as Pa-ris was difficult at first, he wasable to adapt to the circums-tances with the help of his fa-mily and his wife, who workedin the same sector. He says,“For me and my family thismove was a significant stage inour lives,” and adds, “life is astruggle forever and we had noother choice. We were able toovercome many obstacles withthe help of my family,”

Erin, who worked at the sa-me food company for nearly20 years, decided that it wastime to set sail towards diffe-rent horizons and started towork on his own in the ad-vertising and marketing busi-ness. He became the publicityagent for Turkish companiesin and around Paris.

Two years ago, Erin startedto work as the communicati-ons head and the general co-ordinator of Turkish affairsin an international companyof French origin in Poissy,near Paris. He designs the ad-vertisements, the internet si-te, posters and booklets forthe company and devisesplans for marketing.

The French company is enga-ged in business with China,Turkey, Romania and theCzech Republic. Erin statesthat they do business mostlywith the automotive sector inTurkey and adds, “Our goalis to strengthen our 15-year-long cooperation even more.We want to assess the poten-tial in Turkey in the best waypossible and to ensure thatour country attains the posi-tion it deserves in the processof globalization.”

Painting, photography, pla-ying the piano, writing poemsand being a collector areErin’s hobbies and he empha-sizes that his love of arts wasacquired from his father. Erintells us that last year he retur-ned to the university for a ye-ar to be of help to his friendon his thesis, concerned withthe art works of the Art No-uveau (New Art) movement inIstanbul during the time of theOttoman Empire, and saysthat there was great interestshown in this particular work.

Erin, who says, “I am strugg-ling for international dialogu-e in a world filled with love,respect and tolerance with noreligious, racial or color dis-crimination,” is a member ofvarious organizations in Pariswith friends who share theseideals.

“Life is a drama and an ever-ongoing struggle. My latephysician father’s words stillecho in my ears: ‘Son, all yo-ur life try to win people inste-ad of money.’”œ




huge campaigns against can-didates they view as close toTurkey. This holds true whet-her the candidate is a brand-new one, or an incumbentrepresentative or senator.Opposing candidates, repre-senting their interest groups,and supported by huge dona-tions, are fielded at the firstpossible opportunity. We wit-nessed this at close quartersduring Osman Bengür’s cam-paign in 2006. Similar eventsare already taking place ahe-ad of the November 2008elections.

This political chess game iswell planned and all partiesfriendly to Turkey are forcedinto corners. The staunchestally of Turkey in the Houseand the head of Turkish-American Parliamentary Fri-endship Group, Robert Wex-ler, faces these attacks in Flo-rida every election. What isneeded is to learn the rules ofthe game well and play by therules, rather than complainabout the situation. It fallsupon us to not only supportcandidates friendly to Tur-key, but also draw a long-term roadmap for candidateswho rise from our ranks andexplore ways of carryingthem through to the Houseand the Senate. œ

In the last few years, Turksliving in the US have in-

creasingly ventured into poli-tics. Osman Bengür ran forthe US Congress in the 2006elections, while Tarkan Öcaltried his luck with the FloridaState Senate in 2002.

While those pioneers didn’tmake it, it remains essentialto keep a positive attitudeand field new candidates. Iwas thrilled when I found outthat a Turkish Americanfrom DuPage, Illinois wasrunning in the 2008 elections.

I had the opportunity to meetwith R›fat Siviflo¤lu when heattended the ATAA generalassembly in Washington, DC,in May 2008. These assembli-es are often of the kind, whe-re, unless you’re participatingin the meeting proper, peoplemeet, shake hands on the runand exchange superficial ple-asantries.

I had intended to meet R›fatand hear about his plans forthe future, from the horse’smouth, so to speak. Invitedby Yurter Özcan, Presidentof the Ar› Foundation, I ma-de my way to the hotel wherethe general assembly was totake place. Once we met, Iwas able to happily observe

for local policies above natio-nal ones, as well as unders-tand the relevance of localpolicies in election campa-igns.

All of us in the Turkish-Ame-rican section of society noware obliged to make the bestof this opportunity before us.R›fat has chosen to run for alocal, instead of federal seat;this allows him to drop belowthe radar and thus avoid theunwelcome attention of anti-Turkish lobbies. The roadahead is a long one; the nextgoal, should he make it intolocal government on this oc-casion, is to enter Congressfrom his constituency. All ofus in the Turkish-Americandiaspora must support R›fatwith all our might with thisgoal in view. This might con-sists of money. Our diasporasuccessfully raised a not in-significant amount of moneyin the 2008 preliminaries alo-ne. The Hilary Clinton fund-raising campaign raised ne-arly half a million dollars.This power now needs to beexercised to support R›fat.

US election campaigns are to-ugh for every candidate witha vested interest in Turkey.Whatever their identity, allanti-Turkish lobbies launch

the same self-confidence andknowledge in R›fat as I did inOsman Bengür, my close fri-end. R›fat is well aware of thesteepness of the hill he’s setout to climb, and in particu-lar, the relative inexperienceof Turkish-American societyin these matters. He tells me,during the course of our chat,that he’s determined to pre-pare a great roadmap for fu-ture candidates.

R›fat’s message to his consti-tuency is economic. The mainissues impacting the DuPageregion are tax increases thatcreate additional burdens onfamilies and businesses. In-creased taxes, reduced servi-ces, differences of opinion inDuPage administration, lackof transparency and the poorperformance of the local go-vernment were all factorsthat kindled R›fat’s desire torun for election. As the pre-sent presidential election isbeing fought on the economyplatform, this choice is thecorrect one for local electi-ons. R›fat is determined towork on righting financialshortcomings first off, if elec-ted. Another major topic heunderlines is the need to in-crease transparency. As R›fatis Turkish in origin, we haveto appreciate his preference

WASHINGTON BACKSTAGE

NEW CANDIDATE RIFAT SIVIfiO⁄LUAli Günertem

[email protected]


approximately 450 million Euroand now it is managed by Tho-mas and Klaus Rücker, the fourthRücker generation.

The cheese produced for the Tur-kish market under the trade nameOba has been introduced to themarket by fienol Ifl›kay, the salesmanager. Ifl›kay, who has a uni-versity degree in geography, wro-te his master’s thesis on Turkishretailers and came across the Rüc-ker Company while searching forjobs four years ago. He immedia-tely started out to introduce thetrade name to the ethnic market.Ifl›kay, who states that there hasbeen a 200% increase in sales sin-ce then, is responsible for the de-velopment of small-scale packingtechnique for Oba cheeses, whichare now sold on market shelvesrather than in 16 kilogram boxesdesigned for wholesale marketing.Ifl›kay notes, “We did not copyanyone, we just improved ourown products and this has had asignificant effect on recognition ofthe trade name.” Oba, which in-troduces its products via publicitycampaigns in the Turkish press,markets the products using adver-tising films shot in Turkey. Ifl›kayalso produces products for Greekand Arab consumers.

The Rücker company, which hasits manufacturing center in Au-rich, Germany, plans to increasethe products marketed under thetrade name Oba. Ifl›kay highlightsthe fact that there is severe compe-tition in the food market, where36 Turkish trade names race aga-inst each other. Oba also marketsits products outside of Germanyin Denmark, Switzerland, theNetherlands and Belgium.œ

The ethnic food market in Ger-many, which has an estimated

value of approximately 6 billionEuro, engages not merely the at-tention of Turkish companies, butalso those of the giant Germanproducers. Rücker GmbH in Germany, one

produces approximately 300 mil-lion kilograms of dairy productsannually. Rücker butter and dairyproducts are as well known as itscheese. The annual revenue of thecompany, which does special pro-ductions for large retail chains inGermany such as Lidl and Aldi, is

of the world’s leading feta cheeseproducers, sells its cheese in Tur-kish markets under the trade na-me of Oba. The company, whosefoundations were laid by EduardRücker in 1890, was expanded byhis son Gustav Rücker and nowhas about 300 employees and

SENOL ISIKAY


RUCKER’S WEAPON IN THEE T H NIC MARKET

fienol Ifl›kay, who has a university degree in geography, wrotehis master’s thesis on Turkish retailers.

The cheese produced for the Turkish market under the trade name Oba has been introduced to themarket by fienol Ifl›kay, the sales manager.


meets some 10 to 15% of Vien-na’s daily bread requirements.Owned by the businessmanMehmet Ali Çanyaya, the ba-kery employs 53 workers.

Two Turkish banks serve the so-me 220,000 Turks who live inAustria: Vak›fbank InternationalAG and Denizbank AG, sold tothe French-Belgian banking part-nership Dexia in 2006. Deniz-bank, which began Austrian ope-rations in 1996, has nine branc-hes, while Vak›fbank, in Austriasince 1999, also serves as head-quarters for all Vak›fbank branc-hes throughout Europe. œ

Vienna- Turkish entreprene-urs in Vienna, the capital of

Austria, focus mainly on thewholesale foods and gastro-nomy industries, just as theircousins in Germany do. Do &Co Restaurants and Catering,Etsan, Orient, and Hürpafl aresome of the leading AustrianTurkish companies.

The Do & Co Group, owned byAtilla Do¤udan, serves manyairlines in catering, runs theDo&Co Hotel in the most pres-tigious district of the city and isnow the proprietor of the 100-year-old distinguished Demelpatisserie chain.

Hüseyin Ünal entered the who-lesale and retail food sector in1985; his company Etsan has achain of outlets and is one of the

applications, from automotiveto electronics.

Close to 15 other Turkish com-panies based in Vienna sell fur-niture to the ethnic market.Two of the largest companies inthe Turkish market are EvimMobilya and Hane Mobilya.Evim Mobilya’s proprietor, bu-sinessman Ceyhan Pusmaz, hasmost recently undertaken theEuropean distribution of Tur-kish fans’ goods during Europe2008, an expo jointly organizedby Austria and Switzerland.

Üçler Backereibetriebs GmbH

leaders in wholesale foods. Et-san later launched an energydrink under the Wild Dragonbrand name, which ensured itsreputation in the market.

Haydar Güner’s Onur Groupcompanies are the largest fruitand vegetable importers of Aus-tria, and they are in the top thre-e in Europe.

Orient GmbH’s proprietor Ay-han Bakan was the first busi-nessman to import Sri Lankantea into Europe in 1986. Orientis one of the leading tea impor-ters of Europe.

Founded in 1991 by Edip Bay›-z›tl›o¤lu, Wedco High QualityTooling leads the Austrian mar-ket with its cutting tools desig-ned for a variety of industrial

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?


THE THIRD SIEGE OF VIENNA



Turkish homes in Germany;whereas in the Netherlands thisfigure rises to 1.6%. The Turkishresidents of the Netherlands,who save 17% of their income,are owners of 17,000 homes.

13,500 TURKISH ENTREPRENEURS INTHE NETHERLANDSAccording to research findings,the total number of Turkish en-trepreneurs active in the Nether-lands has reached 13,500.Among the Turkish populationworking in the country, the ratioof entrepreneurs is 9% and theseenable 62,000 people to findemployment. The percentage offemale entrepreneurs among theTurkish entrepreneurs, whose to-tal annual revenue is 5.6 billionEuro, is 20.7%.

While the average investment ofTurkish business establishmentsin the Netherlands is 110,000,the sectoral distribution of theseestablishments is based on ethnicniches. 37% of the Turkish busi-ness establishments in the co-untry are concentrated in the re-tail trade, 28.2% of which is infood industry, 20.4% in serviceareas, 7.9% in crafts, 4.3% inwholesale trade and 2.2% in themanufacturing and constructioni n d u s t r y .œ

It was announced that 365,000people of Turkish origin living

in the Netherlands contribute 8.4billion Euro to that country’sgross national expenditure.

According to research carriedout by the Turkish ResearchCenter (TAM) Foundation, "TheTurkish Population in the Net-herlands and the Countries of theEuropean Union, House Dataand the Economical Power ofthe Entrepreneurs", which isconcerned with Turkish entrep-reneurship and the Turkish pe-ople who live in the Netherlands,the eighth largest country of theEuropean Union, the contributi-on of the Turks in the Nether-lands to the Annual Gross Natio-nal Expenditure of the EuropeanUnion is 1.7 times that of Malta.

number of house residentsamong the Turkish residents is3.9 persons and the net incomeper residence is about 2150 Eu-ro. While the average unemploy-ment in Germany was 8.4% in2006, it was only 3.9% in theNetherlands. The average num-ber of people per residence whoare employed is 1.3 persons in

The Turkish Embassy in the Ha-gue was instrumental in thetranslation into Flemish of the re-search findings presented to thepublic by Prof. Dr. Faruk fien,the Director of TAM Foundati-on, at the Dutch-Turkish LaborCouncil (NETUBA) in the Ha-gue. The research was carriedout by Prof. Dr. Faruk fien andYunus Ulusoy, the DepartmentChairman of TAM FoundationApplied Projects and Researchon Economics.

TURKS OWN 17,000 RESIDENCES INTHE NETHERLANDSResearch results indicate that365,000 residents of Turkish ori-gin in the Netherlands contributeabout 8.4 billion Euro to the An-nual Gross National Expenditu-re of the country. The average

TURKS IN HOLLAND

62,000 EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIESFROM DUTCH TURKISH ENTREPRENEURS365,000 residents of Turkish origin in the Netherlands contribute about 8.4 billion Euro to the Annual

Gross National Expenditure of the country.

THE ECONOMIC POWER OF TURKISH ENTREPRENEURS IN THE NETHERLANDSD a t a V a l u e

N u m b e r 1 3 , 5 0 0

Average investment per business establishment (Euro) 1 1 0 , 0 0 0

Total investment (billion Euro) 1 . 5

Average revenue per business establishment (Euro) 4 1 8 , 0 0 0

Total annual revenue (billion Euro) 5 . 6

Average number of employees per business establishment 4 . 6

Total number of employees 6 2 , 0 0 0

Source: The Turkish Research Center Foundation


in Vienna.

The so-called Ring Avenue,which is a three-lane roadsurrounding the city, is actu-

V ienna – Vienna is the ca-pital of an old Empire

and you realize this betterwhile roaming the streets ofthe city. The Cathedral of St.

a must for travelers to seeHagia Sophia in Istanbul andthe Empire State Building inNew York, it is a must to seethe Cathedral of St. Stephens

Stephens, which is extensi-vely mentioned in the Tur-kish traveler Evliya Celebi’sBook of Travels, is thesymbol of the city. Just as it is

TURKISH TRACES IN VIENNA


LIFE IN VIE N N A Actually, Viennaacquired historical and

political significance afterthe Siege of Vienna.

Turk Of America 58-60 8/7/08 11:05 AM Page 2

ally the walls of the famousVienna Fortress: the fortresswhich the Turks besiegedtwice but failed to conquer.The walls, which stood up

until the 19th century, werelater torn down to build theroad.

What is left of the city walls


is the entrance gate at HeroesSquare. All significant andhistorical structures are onthis ring avenue: The Muse-um of Natural History, the

Museum of Fine Arts, theAustrian Parliament, themost beautiful City Hall inEurope and the Vienna BurgTheater. And a little farther

By Sinan Ertu¤rul*


away from the theater buil-ding is the oldest German-language University, that is,the University of Vienna.

The name of Vienna--whosehistory goes back to the Ro-mans--is derived from Latin.The Romans establish a fron-tier post and call it Vindabo-na. The famous Roman Cae-sar Marcus Aurelius was bornin Vienna.

Actually, Vienna acquiredhistorical and political signi-ficance after the Siege of Vi-enna. While until the time ofthe first siege Vienna was anunimportant city in CentralEurope where the Kaiser ne-ver came, its success duringthe siege made it gain impor-tance. The city walls were re-paired and renewed until thesecond siege and the city ac-quired the strongest walls ofits time. Today in almostevery corner of Vienna onecomes across something asso-ciated with the Turks; it maybe the name of a street or acannon ball. The defense ofVienna is part and parcel ofits identity..

Many long years after the Siegeof Vienna, Turkish workers be-gan streaming intp Austria inthe 60’s and the 70’s, followingan agreement signed with Tur-key to provide the labor forcerequired to reconstruct structu-res destroyed in the SecondWorld War.The initial objectiveof these workers was to workfor a couple of years, to saveenough money to buy a cow ora tractor and go back home.

Unfortunately it did not turnout like that. My father wasone of them; he looked likethe modern migrant, arrivingwith only a single suitcaseand a mattress. However, ye-ars went by, and he somehowcould never return to his ho-meland. First he brought hisfamily over, then split themup and sent half of them backhome. Today approximately220,000 Turks live in Austri-a. A large number of themwere supposedly short-termlaborers.

Now they are Austrians andmost of them live in Vienna.They have representatives onthe city council; some havedeveloped into important bu-sinessmen and employers; so-me are faculty members atthe university, others arephysicians in hospitals, orlawyers; it is possible to findAustrian Turks in all kinds ofprofessions. Your taxi driverin Vienna might be a Turk.They are now Austrians andare part of this country. Itdoes not matter that theymay be regarded as foreignersin Austria or as “emigrants”in Turkey. Now kebap is anAustrian national food, rightnext to Schnitzel. An Austri-a and Vienna without Turksis inconceivable.

* Sinan Ertu¤rul is a graduate studentin the Political Science Department ofthe University of Vienna. Ertu¤rul, whohas been living in Vienna since 1999,is the youngest child of a family whoimmigrated to Europe in 1963. œ

TURKISH TRACES IN VIENNA


TURKISH TRACES IN VIENNAThe famous Oriental studies expert Kertsin Tomenendal in hisbook “Turkish Traces in Vienna” points to close to 400 variousTurkish works of art in Vienna. However, most of them createan undesirable image. Some of these are:

*Prince Eugene, who served in the king’s army during theSecond Siege of Vienna, defeated the Turks and gained agreat victory at Zenta in 1697. Prince Eugene took backBelgrade from the Ottomans in 1717 and his body wasinterred in St.Stephen’s Cathedral. His statue in Heroes Square,which was unveiled in 1865, stands in front of the AustrianNational Library. The statue shows Prince Eugene on his horsewhich is trampling on Turkish bricks. The original or artificialTurkish cannon balls that symbolize the defense of Vienna andthe retreat of the Turks, leaving everything behind, can be seenas decorations of victory on exterior walls of houses. One ofthese is the gold Turkish cannon ball at Am Hof 11 where thestatue of Çerkez Day› (Circassian Uncle) is in No.1 Vienna.. * At the corner of house number 3 on Gavur (Infidel) Streetthere is the statue of a small Turkish soldier on his rearing horse,holding a sword in his hand. This hero, whose story has spreadfrom mouth to mouth, is known as Çerkez Day› (CircassianUncle) by the Turks and Gavur Atefli (Infidel’s Fire) by theAustrians. During the First Siege of Vienna by Sultan Suleimanthe Magnificient a cannon ball breached a city wall. ÇerkezDay› entered the city through the opening without looking backand after a while realized that he was alone. He fought againstthe Austrian army until he was martyred. King Ferdinand hadthis great hero and his horse embalmed and set up under thevault of a house. Thus, the square where Çerkez Day› wasmartyred became known as the Çerkez Day› Square. Over thecourse of centuries the information about the interred body andits fate was lost.The square, which was previously known as the“Çerkez Day› Square”, is now called “Heidenschuss”

* One of the pictures of the Virgin Mary, who was called on tohelp during the Turkish wars, is “Maria Pötsch” which isimmediately to the right of the entrance to St.Stephen’sCathedral. This picture was designated as the palm for thebattle of Zenta by Abraham a Sancta Clara, because shortlyafter the picture was fixed onto the main altar in the cathedralthe news of Prince Eugene’s victory against the Turks in battleof Zenta was received. The picture, which is known by thename Türkenmodanna, was called on for help and blessed inall Turkish wars .Again, a janissary trampled by a preacherand a statue with Turkish tile design are seen on the exteriornorth wall of the cathedral.

* The plate fixed to the corner of Kärtner Street in memory ofthe First Siege of Vienna describes the last attack of the Turkswho were driven back on October 14, 1529. (July 4, 2008,Selahattin Sevi, Zaman)

*One of the public parks in Vienna which is visited byapproximately 800 people daily is called the Turkish Park. ItsGerman name is "Türkenschanzpark" The park was built between1885 and 1888 in memory of the Second Siege of Vienna byfinancial contributions and the initiative of people living in thearea; its landscape took its present form in 1910. Its Germanname, which means “Turkish Barracks”, is derived from the factthat the Ottoman Barracks were located in this region.


He started the halal meat busi-ness in Austria in 1990, first bybuying around 300 live lambsper week from Czechoslovakiaand Poland to sell only in hisown markets. When demand in-creased, he began importing1500-2000 lambs per weekfrom Poland, Czechoslovakia,Hungry, Rumania, Bulgria,England and Ireland for halalslaughtering by his own butc-hers

In 1991, after getting authoriza-tion for halal slaughtering, heinitiated it for livestock in theVienna Municipality Slaughter-

Vienna – The story of theMacro Group began in a

small grocery store. HüseyinÜnal from Yozgat, who came toAustria as a worker, met the ha-lal meat needs of various neigh-borhoods in Vienna. The adven-ture, which started by selling themeat of 30 lambs per week, hasnow turned into a company witha revenue of 90 million Euro.

Ünal, with seven friends, startedthe wholesale food and marke-ting business in 1985 under thename of Aksoy. When his fri-ends gradually quit the businessthe company was left to Ünal.

HUSEYIN UNAL


THE LARGEST TURKISH FOOD COM PA NTHE MACRO

Hüseyin Ünal, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of theMacro Group.

Macro Group has 13 supermarkets in Vienna,varying between 600-1200 square meters in

size, as well as three furniture stores.

The Wild Dragon, which is exported to 32 different countries inthe world, is sold in the Chicago area.


house. He began to produce ha-lal meat products in 1992. TheMacro Group buys livestock,slaughters and sells to wholesalemarkets and also produces Et-san salami, frankfurters and su-cuk (spicy sausages).

Since their wholesale food spacein Vienna’s No. 10 district wassmall, the Macro Group boughta building with about 3000square meters of usage area inVienna’s wholesale market andbecame the largest wholesale fo-od company in Austria.

Ünal, in addition to the whole-

sale food business, opened thefirst supermarket under the na-me of Etsan in 10th District Vi-enna in 1997. Presently, theGroup has 13 supermarkets inVienna, varying between 600-1200 square meters in size, aswell as three furniture stores.Hüseyin Ünal, the Chairmanof the Board of Directors ofthe Macro Group, which has150 employees in wholesalefood, meat production andmarketing sectors, plans to raisethe Group’s 90 million Eurorevenues to a total of 130million Euro by the end of2008. œ


OM PANY IN AUSTRIA : THE W‹LD DRAGON SEEKS NEW MARKETS ‹N THE USAOne of the areas on which the Macro Group has beenconcentrating recently is Wild Dragon, an energy drink.Hüseyin Ünal started out by becoming an associate ofanother energy drink company in Austria, the motherland ofenergy drinks, and afterwards created his own brand name,The Wild Dragon.

The Wild Dragon is headed by Hüseyin Ünal’s son YaflarÜnal. The Wild Dragon, which is exported to 32 differentcountries in the world, is sold in the Chicago area of the stateof Illinois in the USA. Yaflar Ünal, the sales and marketinghead of the Wild Dragon, is in the process of searching formarketing opportunities in New York and its vicinity andplans to have access to customers through a distributor. Hecomments: “We trust our brand and product. After Chicago,it is our goal to accelerate the sales in the USA, in general.”

The energy drink that can be considered the father of allenergy drinks was produced by Iron Brew in Scotland in1901. However, energy drinks became widespread inEurope through Red Bull, which was developed by DietrichMateschitz, an Austrian entrepreneur. The source ofinspiration for Red Bull was Krating Daeng, a Thai beverage.

The USA energy drink market reached a sales volume of 5.4billion dollars at the end of 2007. According to estimates byGoldman Sachs and Mintel, this sales volume will go up to10 billion dollars by the end of 2010. Pepsi, Coca-Cola,Molson and Labatt invested in energy drinks by annexingsmall companies. Energy drinks are consumed mostly byyoung customers, 65% of whom are between ages of 13-35.

Ünal, who follows the developments in the market closely,points out that the discovery of energy drinks by largecompanies has increased competititon. The entrance of suchgiant soft drink companies as Coca Cola and Pepsi into theenergy drink market via purchases has had an adverse effecton companies that are obliged to create their own brandnames and distribution means. Entering the market as a sub-branch of a big brand name does not necessarily bringleadership in marketing. On the other hand, Red Bull ismaintaining its leadership vis-a-vis the giant companies.

Recently, the photography for the advertisement campaignfor The Wild Dragon were completed by Ünal and aphotographer from New York. Ünal plans to have a uniqueposition among energy drinks with the new image they wantto create for The Wild Dragon, a drink that is now also beingmarketed in Turkey...


ved to Austria from Germanyas religious instructors. After-wards, five of these friends,including Ayhan Bakan, es-tablished the Orient GmbHtextile company in 1984. Thecompany was founded usingan endowed fund composedof 10 thousand marks givenby each one of the five foun-ders.

Vienna- Though it interrup-ted the course of politics,

Turkey’s coup d’état of Sep-tember 12, 1980 culminated insignificant changes in the livesof many young people duringthose years. When the army to-ok over the state administrati-on, many young people prefer-red to go abroad to get awayfrom the political turmoil.

which he had come to get aneducation. He attended RuhrUniversity for about 2.5 ye-a r s .

Later, he replied to an adver-tisement issued by the Austri-an government to teach reli-gious instruction courses forTurkish junior high schoolstudents. Twelve friends mo-

In those days Ayhan Bakan,who had graduated fromMarmara University, one ofthe few universities in Istan-bul at that time, came toDortmund in Germany to geta Ph.D. The coup d’état tookplace one week after he arri-ved in Germany. His scho-larship was frozen and he wasleft helpless in the country to

ORIENT GMBH


THE MAN WHO INTRODUCED CEYLONTEA TO EUROPEAN MARKETS

In 1986 Bakan became the first businessman to import Ceylontea to Europe.

Orient, under its own brand name, provides all European markets, Austria being first on the list, with every kind of dried food.


One of the instructors left hisjob to take care of the dailybusiness of the Orient. Thebusiness life that was launc-hed in textiles soon transfor-med into a food industry.

As the partners who got astart in business in a 30 squa-re meter store withdrew fromthe company one by one, theOrient passed into the ow-nership of Bakan in 1986.

Upon the arrival of his sib-lings from Turkey, Bakan be-gan to expand the business.In the course of time the, 30square meter area went up to100 and then 300 square me-ters. He began to import foodfrom the foreign businesscompany which they establis-hed in Turkey in 1988. To-day, Orient, under its ownbrand name, provides all Eu-ropean markets, Austria be-ing first on the list, with every

kind of dried food. In additi-on to the German based Tur-kish food producers such asBaktat, Efe Firat, Yayla, Sera,Naml› and Türkel whichcarry the banner with theirown icon, Etsan and Orientare known as the two leadingcompanies in Austrian mar-k e t s .

INTRODUCED CEYLON TEAIn 1986 Bakan became thefirst businessman to importCeylon tea to Europe. WhenTurkish tea became discredi-ted following the Chernobyldisaster, Bakan edged to-wards and then became asso-ciated with Ceylon tea. Todaythe Orient is one of the lar-gest tea importers in Europe.

The Orient played an impor-tant role in converting theTurkish population in Europeinto Ceylon tea consumers.The Orient, which presently


sells tea with Anatolian brandnames such as Ece, Karade-niz, Colombo, Keyif, is a lea-der in the tea market.

Olives rank as the third mostconsumed product by theTurkish population in Euro-pe, following meat and milkproducts. The Orient, besidesproducing its own olives un-der the brand name of Ece, al-so exports to Europe the oli-ves produced at its own com-pany in Akhisar, Manisa. Thecompany, established with aninvestment of 1.5 million Eu-ro ($ 2.2 million) exports oli-ves to 26 countries.

The Orient, which at one po-int entered the retail sector inTurkey by opening a super-market, later dissolved thisbusiness and withdrew fromthe market at the time of thegreat financial crisis of 2001.Presently, the Orient, with a

staff of 20 at its principal of-fice in Vienna, has 350 emp-loyees in its companies thatproduce products under itsown brand name.

Bakan affirms that they havestarted to produce cheese forthe North American market.He believes that cheese expor-ted to Canada will edge intothe market in the course of ti-m e .

Rafet F›rat and fiahin Teki-ner, who were partners in fo-unding the Orient, remain inAustria where they are invol-ved in other kinds of busines-ses. The other original part-ners, Mustafa Bozdemir andArif Altunbafl, returned toTurkey. Bakan has two chil-dren, a daughter and a son,and says that now the secondgeneration has gradually be-gun to assume their responsi-b i l i t i e s .œ


HAYDAR GUNER


A U S T RIA’S VEGETABLE &F R UIT KIN G

A U S T RIA’S VEGETABLE &F R UIT KIN G

Haydar Güner

Presently, the Onur Group companies owned by Haydar Güner are Austria’s number one vegetable-fruit import dealers.


The story began in a small,55 square meter greengro-

cery. You might be able to gu-ess the end of the tale from itstitle. Haydar Güner was just21 years old when he came toVienna in 1985 after cuttingshort his university educationhalfway through his studies.He started off by selling retailvegetables and fruit in the ol-dest market in Vienna. He leftthat job and started to workin a cleaning company. Hebought his first shop in 1990,and this 55 square meter gre-engrocery provided his firstexperience as an entreprene-ur. Haydar Güner and his wi-fe Yeter sold vegetables andfruit in their shop for ten ye-ars. He started a wholesalevegetable-fruit import busi-ness in 1993 and named hiscompany after his seven-yearold son: Onur Impex.

Presently, the Onur Groupcompanies owned by HaydarGüner are Austria’s numberone vegetable-fruit importdealers. He says that they areamong the top three compani-es in Europe. Güner, whoopened places in Stutgart andDüsseldorf after Vienna, be-gan to export vegetables andfruit to Austria via the exportcompany he established inTurkey in 1998. The Turkishbased company carries the na-me of his younger son And›ç:And›ç Food.

Güner has facilities in citiessuch as Bursa and Afyon,with the head office being inAntalya. He stores his produ-ce in a 20,000 square metercold storage plant.

Güner, who sells not only toTurkish markets in Austria,but to large chain stores aswell, imports most of his pro-duce from the Netherlands,Italy and Turkey. He importsapproximately 180 differentkinds of products. A total of

250 employees work in histwo companies. Güner, whoimports around 20,000 tonsof vegetables and fruit to Aus-tria, says that the export com-pany that they established inTurkey in 1998 has played asignificant role in the expansi-on of the company. He com-ments: “Taking a risk neededmuch courage; however. I hadthe support of my whole fa-mily. My wife was my grea-test helper and the knowledgethat she was behind me wasworth millions of Euro.”


THE LARGEST TURKISH RESTAURANT IN VIENNAIn 2001, Güner, who is alsoexperienced in the food sectorin addition to the vegetable-fruit trade, opened a restaurantin District 10 Vienna. In Febru-ary 2008, he handed this res-taurant over to someone elseand last June opened one of thelargest restaurants on the shoreof the Danube in Austria. Therestaurant, Sofra, has indoorseating for 120 and an outdoorseating area that can serve upto 1200 people.

The restaurant, which is ex-pected to cost 1.4 million Eu-ro when completed, is cen-trally located across from theUnited Nations buildings, ne-ar the fair-assembly centerand the soccer stadium in Vi-enna. The restaurant, whichwill initially employ 30 peop-le, was previously used as abeer garden . Güner and hispartner R›za Demir, who has30 years of work experiencein the Inter Continental Ho-tel, signed a 25 year lease onthe place--which belongs tothe Vienna Harbor. Günersays, “There is no other res-taurant of this size in Vienna.We plan to introduce Turkishcuisine and the Turkish hospi-tality to our customers here.” In addition to this investmentin the restaurant, Güner hasalso started a new venture inthe retail sector. Last July heopened the 457 square meterOnur Supermarket in SanktPölten, the capital of LowerA u s t r i a .œ


tor of various companies sincethe age of 20.

100 EMPLOYEESBay›z›tl›o¤lu, who initially es-tablished Wedco as a commer-cial company and started pro-duction in 1995, states that allfeatures, including the conceptand design of cutting tools ma-nufactured by them, are theirown. Wedco, which covers anarea of 3000 square meters,harbors 10 companies. The to-tal number of employees in allof its companies is around 100.

The parent body includes Wed-co Production, Wedco Service(modification of tools used inmachining, tool-management,measurement protocols, qualityconsultation) and Wedco Tools(manufacturing of prime valueproducts).

In parallel with Wedco’s deve-lopment, its manufacturing pla-ce is being doubled. Bay›z›tl›-o¤lu states, “Our high-qualityconsultancy is not a mere slo-gan, it is a company principle.”

Wedco, besides manufacturingits own products, also serves asthe commercial and technicalrepresentative for Sumitomo,the largest manufacturer ofCBN-rotating shafts, Horn, theprestigious German companywhich manufactures tools forlathes, and Nikken firms whichproduce rotary tables and sup-port wraps. 70% of Wedcoproducts are sold in Austria.Wedco, which started producti-on in Turkey four years agoalong with Portugal, also hasinvestments in Italy and Eng-land. The company takes partin such international expositi-ons such as EMO, EuroMold,Metav and TATEF. Bay›z›tl›o¤-lu also serves as the Chairmanof the Organization of Austri-an Turkish Businessmen. œ

Vienna- Austria’s geograp-hically central location in

Europe, at a commercial andcultural crossroads, accords ad-vantages to businesses opera-ting in the country.

Austria, which forms boundari-es with eight contries -- Ger-many, the Czech Republic, Slo-vakia, Hungry, Slovenia, Italy,Switzerland and Liechtenstein -- is the major supplier, particu-larly for the powerful industryin Germany. 32% of Austria’stotal exports are to Germanyand its 103.7 billion in exportvolume in Euro exceeds India’s

electronics sectors amd is amongthe top companies in the Austri-an market. Bay›z›tl›o¤lu, the fo-under of Wedco, which controls10% of the Austrian market inproduction of precision cuttingtools and dies, plans to increasethis to 15% in 2012.

Following his father, who im-migrated to Austria in 1971 fromIzmir, the pearl city of Turkey inthe Aegean region, Bay›z›tl›o¤luand his mother came to Viennain 1976. Upon completing hiseducation in technical school, hebecame an engineer. He has beenworking in the cutting tools sec-

export volume (95 billion Eu-ro). Austria, which is amongthe 25 nations with the largestexport volume, is expected toderive 200 billion Euro worthof revenues from materials andservices exported by 2010.

The presence in Germany of gi-ant automobile industries suchas BMW, Mercedes and Opelprovides the dynamics for thedevelopment of Austrian in-dustry. Wedco High QualityTooling, established by Edip Ba-y›z›tl›o¤lu in 1991, manufactu-res cutting tools for heavy indus-tries such as the automotive and

EDIP BAYIZITLIOGLU


WEDCO: THE INDUSTRIAL PRECISION CUTTING TOOL

Wedco High Quality Tooling, established by Edip Bay›z›tl›o¤lu in 1991.

Wedco controls 10% of the Austrian market in production of precision cutting tools and dies.


V ienna- Two Turkishbanks in Austria prima-

rily provide services to220,000 Turkish people: theVak›fbank International AGand Denizbank AG, whichin 2006 was sold for 2.4 bil-lion dollars to Dexia, theFrench-Belgium joint ban-king group. Both banks havetheir main offices in thesame area in District 10Vienna.

Denizbank, which wentinto operation in 1996, hasnine branches in Austria.Vak›fbank, which has beenin Vienna since 1999, is themain branch of other Vak›f-banks in Europe. Vak›fbankalso has a branch in Kölnand another one in Frank-f u r t .

Denizbank AG’s active sizeis 1.3 billion Euro, whereasVak›fbank’s is 420 billionEuro. The bank deposits ofapproximately 10,000 peop-le amount to close to 250million Euro in Vak›fbankAG Europe. A large percen-tage (about 90%) of accountholders with bank depositsis made up of German andAustrian customers. Vak›f-bank AG, which is moreconservative with respect toopening branches, has anequity capital of 45 millionEuro.

Numan Bek, the General Di-rector of Vak›fbank AG, hasbeen working in Vienna forthree years. Bek, who servedas the General Director ofthe New York branch of Va-k›fbank, is also the creatorof a project whereby compa-nies or organizations can usetheir real estate properties inTurkey as collateral formortgages. Many Turkishentrepreneurs in Austria andGermany have raised creditthis way. Bek stresses thatthey accept real estate pro-


perties in Turkey for mort-gages after making sure thatthe payment capacity ofthe company is good; healso says that not everyonewho has real estate can carrya m o r t g a g e . V a k › f b a n k ,which particularly wants tosupport the Turkish estab-lishments that need capitalfor expansion, allowed theuse of 1 billion dollars incredit via its New Yorkb r a n c h .

Vak›fbank AG, which hel-ped Turkish organizations inVienna in the process of ob-taining their buildings, po-ints out that through thiscredit system these organiza-tions became able to repre-sent Turkey and the Turkishcommunity in modern buil-dings.

While money transfers wereits priority during the initialyears, the bank, which hand-les personal and commercialcredit, also helps those whowant to own a house in Tur-key.

Bek points out that contraryto the early days of Vak›f-bank AG, money transfersto Turkey have diminishedand adds that: “The Turkishpeople in Europe are gettingpoorer. They have alsorealized that they cannotreturn to Turkey for good.They are now able to takeup a loan in Europe with amortgage covering their ho-me in Turkey. They look atthe place like their home.”Bek adds that the Austrianbanking deposit insurancefund gave EU a note ofinspection of Vak›fbankAG and found the bank’sactive quality to be goodand its credit established.Among Bek’s plans ist o make it possible forthe bank to have its ownb u i l d i n g .œ

TURKISH BANKS IN AUSTRIA

VAKIFBANK AGSUPPORTS TURKIS H

ENTERPRENEURS

The bank deposits of approximately 10,000people amount to close to 250 million Euro in

Vak›fbank AG Europe.


establishment and theoperation of the IstanbulAHL Free Zone for a fortyyear period on a build-operate-transfer basis. Sincethen, the investments thecompany has made in thearea’s infrastructure andabove-ground facilities havemet the needs of both the areaitself and many companiesrepresenting a number ofdifferent sectors. ‹SB‹provides direct and indirect

value added services forthe Turkish

economy with its more than2,000 employees in an areathat hosts approximately 400domestic and foreigncompanies, which arethemselves leaders in theirsectors.

‹SB‹, located directly adjacentto the Atatürk Airport in thecenter of Istanbul, a city witha current population of 13million amd which ranks asone of the world’s leading

The recent recognition ofTurkey’s potential in the

aviation sector has broughtwith it significant investmentsto meet its new needs.

The most important of theseinvestments has been realizedin the Free Zone at ‹stanbulAtatürk Airport. The area

now hosts the ‘SimulatorFlight Training Center’project, a project whichGözen Aviation has beenplanning for the past threey e a r s .

With this project ‹stanbul hasput its name on the mapamong worldwide simulatortraining centers found inmajor parts of the world.

Gözen Aviation, an important

Airport, was selected as themost suitable site for thep u r p o s e .

The center, which will providetraining for airline pilots fromthe Middle East and EasternEurope, along with thoseemployed at its domesticairlines, will enable millionsof Euro to remain in Turkeyevery year and will alsoattract hard-currency incometo the country. The localprovision of this specializedtraining, which pilots arerequired to get every sixmonths, will make it possiblefor domestic airline pilots tomeet this requirement in theirown country, at a lower costand without any loss of time.

AIRPLANE SPARE PARTS ANDLOGISTICS COMPANIESThe free area also hostscompanies that provide spareparts for airplanes, as well asthose that meet the food,cleaning and other needs ofairplanes and ships. Thesecompanies are able to carryout their activities with theadvantage of commercialactivity certificates thatprovide tax benefits for a ten-year period.

ISTANBUL AHL FREE ZONEFOUNDER AND OPERATOR A.fi.In 1996 ‹SB‹ (IstanbulAtatürk Airport Free ZoneFounding and Operating JointStock Comp) assumed the

name in civil aviation and onethat owns the ‹stanbulInternational Flight TrainingCenter (IFTC) with itscapacity of four simulators, isnow utilizing the most recenttechnologies as it providessimulator flight training fornational and internationalpilots at a 2,000 square meter

area at ‹stanbul AHL FreeZone.

The main reason for theselection of ‹stanbul for theflight center is that the‹stanbul AHL Free Zonerepresents an ideal location toprovide flight training tointernational as well asTurkish pilots. Thus, theIstanbul AHL Free Zone,centrally located in ‹stanbuland close to the Atatürk

A D V E R T O R I A L


SIMULATOR FLIGHT TRAINING INTHE FREE ZONE AT ISTANBUL

ATATÜRK AIR P O R TGözen Aviation is now utilizing the most recent technologies as it provides simulator flight training for

national and international pilots at a 2,000 square meter area at ‹stanbul AHL Free Zone.


industrial, financial andcommercial centers, is locatedat the crossroads ofinternational artery ofcommerce. The region has animportant central businessstatus with respect to trade inTurkey as well as world-wide.Due to easy access to marketsand the technologicalinfrastructure of businessestablishments, the area ispresently 95% full. In recentyears, thea n n u a l

turnover of the region hasexceeded three billion dollarsand the current goal is toincrease its trading volume toover 4 billion dollars in 2008.

The region has beenconstructed within theframework of generalconcepts such as thedevelopment of large valueadded technologies, R&Dactivities and baseload, incontrast to other free zoneswhere industrial production is

emphasized. Thismeans that


there are many companies inthe region that provide theadded value by means of theirown qualified personnel. Webelieve that we are uniquewith our technological andsecure infrastructure andestablished and high qualitys e r v i c e s .

While the Istanbul AtatürkAirport Free Zone representsthe smallest physical areaamong the other free zones inTurkey, it maintains the statusof highest-volume zone inregard to trading volume persquare meter.

FREE ZONES EXPECT POSITIVED E V E L O P M E N T SFree zones have generally beenestablished for the purpose ofenabling companies in our co-untry to enter international mar-kets and to compete with othercompanies in the world. Howe-ver, in spite of advantages gai-ned for the country and the di-rect and indirect employmentpossibilities, part of the tax ad-vantages granted to free zoneswas rescinded by Law 5084,which went into effect in Febru-ary 2004. Although the statedpurpose of the law was to trans-form free zones to areas wheremanufacturing would be empha-sized, new companies avoidedthese areas due to the fact thatfew advantages were to be gai-ned. The lack of incentives in the

current law is dri-

ving Turkish manufacturers andinternational trade companiestowards overseas free zones. Asin other developing countries,incentives in Turkey for produc-tion and international trade sho-uld continue. Presently, there aresome legal arrangements that arebeing planned in favor of the fre-e zones. We hope that these en-deavors will open the way forthe development of the Turkishfree zones and the Turkisheconomy. œ

‹SB‹ and AHL Free Zone Development

01.07.1996 0 1 . 0 1 . 2 0 0 8

Investment Totals (US$) 3,500,000 5 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0

Number of Companies in Free Zone 8 9 4 0 3

Total Area (mÇ) 40,000 1 8 0 , 1 5 2

Closed Space (mÇ) 7,297 5 8 . 8 7 0

Trade Volume (US$) 512 million 3.62 billion*

* 2 0 0 7


Wiedner & ‹ltar entered intothe Canadian and US marketswith its leather garments andbags through the intercessionof a designer. This July it de-livered its first shipment toNorth America. ‹ltar says,“The USA is a large and inte-resting market for us. Wewant to be there perma-n e n t l y . ”œ

Vienna – The Turkish en-trepreneurs in Austria who

own business establishmentsdeal with different sectors suchas food, retail, confection, tou-rism and construction. Accor-ding to estimates, forty Turkishcompanies in and around Vien-na are notable for their size andcapacity. Vural ‹ltar, a bus›-nessman who is a partner of theWiedner & ‹ltar Leather Gro-up, has been in the leather gar-ment business with his associa-te Wiedner since 1989 and nowis trying to create his own tra-demark, along with producingleather garments for large cha-in stores.

After studying business at theVienna University of Econo-mics and Business Administra-tion, ‹ltar received an MS in thefield and then returned to Tur-key for a period of time. Later,he returned to Austria to conti-nue in business life. He set offby marketing Turkish-madeproducts in Austria, but laterstarted to produce his own go-ods. From 1989-1997 he wor-ked as a leather wholesale dea-ler for Central Europe, mostlyfor Austria and Germany. At-tracted by the lower labor costsin Pakistan, India and China,he turned his sights towardsAsia. Today he works with 16different factories in those thre-e countries. ‹ltar, who manu-factures under the brand namesMontgomery, Pascalini, Diffe-rent and Traction, also produ-ces for famous brand names inTurkey. Along with leatherclothing, he also makes acces-sories, such as leather bags,gloves and belts.

500,000 ITEMS‹ltar, who says that they annu-ally sell approximately 500,000

lections per year for the mar-ket, are composed of 120 vari-eties of products. ‹ltar is prepa-ring to move his 12-personstaff in the main Wiedner & ‹l-tar building to a new buildingin Vienna. The new place in 12Vienna, which covers an areaof 2000 square meters, will ser-ve as the company headquar-ters and showroom.

items, manufactures productsthat sell for 15-2500 Euro. Hestates that their market in Tur-key is ahead of the one in Aus-tria and that he plans to comp-lement the Montgomery brandwith other textile products un-der the same brand name.

The collections of the com-pany, which organizes two col-

WIEDNER & ILTAR


WIEDNER & ILTAR’S 20-YEAR LEATHER ADVENTURE

Vural Iltar.

‹ltar, who says that they annually sell approximately 500,000 items, manufactures products that sell for 15-2500 Euro.


ness by opening a market in thefuture and plan to grow by in-creasing the variety of their pro-ducts. He underlines the fact thatAustria is a tax country with an-nual growth rates around four tofive percent and he stresses thatincreasing their variety of pro-ducts for restaurants is an impor-tant factor for their growth.

In addition to the Pergast namebrand, they also produce meat andmeat products under the Ulkembrand which is sold to anywherefrom 80 to 120 customers daily.With nearly 1,000 customers, heexplains that 300 of them are re-gular buyers. Originally from Ka-man, Kirsehir, Demirhan is thefather of two children and one of12 siblings. Other than one sister,the rest of his family members re-side in Turkey.œ

Vienna – In the Austrian capi-tal of Vienna, just as in Ger-

many, Turkish entrepreneurs ha-ve heavily concentrated on thewholesale food and gastronomysectors of the market. The who-lesale food buisness is the first tocome to mind in cities whereTurks make up a big part of thepopulation. The food wholesaleand retail business was born fromthe need to consume food suitedto their own tastes.

An immigrant to Vienna in 1980,Mustafa Demirhan wanderedaimlessly for nearly eight monthsbefore finally finding a job at acarpentry workshop. He workedin carpentry until 1985. In 1983he earned a truck-driving licenseand began working as a truck dri-ver. He independently finishedmiddle school. In addition to his

varieties of products, which theyalso export to the Czech Repub-lic and Slovakia. Products madeespecially for Turkish and Italiancooking are at the forefront ofthis 23-person company. “Whatsets us apart,” says Mustafa De-mirhan, “is that along with Tur-kish food products, we are alsofocused on selling products madeespecially for Italian and Austri-an kitchens.”

PIZZA SAUCE AND CORNComing in on top of all the pro-ducts that Pergast sells are thecorn and pizza sauce carryingtheir name brand. Pergast sellsroughly 20 containers of pizzasauce and 12 containers of cornannually. (One container holds23 thousand kilograms of pro-duct on average.) Demirhan saysthey want to enter the retail busi-

truck-driving license, he also ob-tained a license to drive taxis. In1993 he bought a restaurant witha friend and together they enteredthe world of gastronomy. Ironi-cally, they ended up owning anItalian pizza parlor when theyhad originally intended to open aKebab restaurant. In 1998, afterrunning the pizza restaurant forfive years, Demirhan became 50percent partner in Pergast, a com-pany operating in the food who-lesale and distribution business.

The company gradually began tooutgrow its space. In 2006 theymoved to their current location, a3,200 square meter space in Vi-enna’s 12th District. Wholesalersand retailers can purchase fromthe food warehouse where resta-urantiers and end customers alsoshop. Pergast carries over 2,500

P E R G A S T


SELLS 400 TONS OF PIZZA SAUCE ANNUALLY

Mustafa Demirhan.

Pergast carries over 2,500 varieties of products, which they also export to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.


kery in the ethnic market, alsosells bread to such supermar-ket chains in Vienna as Hof-fer, Mercur and Spar. Thefacilities of the bakery inDistrict 12 Vienna, whichhosted another Austrianbakery for 100 years, coversan area of 970 square meters.The equipment in the bakerywas imported from Turkey.Üçler, which produces 47different varieties of bread,owns four other retail stores.Çankaya states that they willcontinue to expand the bakeryand do not plan to get invol-ved in a different kind ofb u s i n e s s .œ

Turkey, which is number oneamong the countries of the

world in consumption of bre-ad, also possesses the techno-logy important in the develop-ment of the work of a baker.According to a survey done bythe Turkish Public Union in2006, the annual bread con-sumption, in kilo/ person, is 71in Denmark, 51 in Finland, 62in Germany, 68 in Italy, 60 inthe Netherlands, 58.5 in Spainand goes up to 128 in Turkey.220,000 Turks who live inAustria obtain bread from Tur-kish bakeries in the country. Itis estimated that in Vienna,which has a population of 1.7

Over the next three months hewas able to regain confidencein himself. He returned to thebakery. First he worked as adriver for five years and thenas the manager of the bakery,again for five years. He boughtthe bakery in 1994. So, he be-came the boss of the bakerywhere initially he was unsuc-cessful as a driver. Çankaya,who took two expert breadmakers into the business aspartners, now also producesfarina-based products such asbaklava and börek, in additionto bread.

Üçler, which is the largest ba-

million, there are approxima-tely 40 Turkish bakeries, largeand small.

Among bakeries that producebread on an industrial scale,Üçler Backereibetriebs GmbHis a major supplier, which fills10-15 % of Vienna’s need forbread. The bakery, which isoperated by Mehmet Ali Çan-kaya, a businessman, has 53employees. Çankaya came toVienna in 1982, started towork as a driver at the bakerybut because he was unfamiliarwith the city he couldn’tcontinue in that job. He had toq u i t .

ÜÇLER BAKERY


HE COULDN’T BE THE BAKERY’S DRIV E RBUT BECAME ITS BOSS

The bakery, which is operated by Mehmet Ali Çankaya, a businessman, has 53 employees.

Üçler Backereibetriebs GmbH is a major supplier, which fills 10-15 % of Vienna’s need for bread.


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