President Erdoğan in Siirt

At a time when Turkey is debating a new economic model that prioritizes investment, production and employment instead of an interest-based economy, our esteemed President is today opening, in Siirt, a very important facility that is one of the most meaningful examples of precisely this economic model. So to speak, he is explaining the new economic model through the most concrete example, in a way everyone can understand. This facility, which will go into operation as Turkey's first Zinc Smelting Plant, is very meaningful both in terms of its financing model and its concrete contribution to production and to Turkey's current account deficit, in showing that the new economic model is by no means hollow and that the claim put forward has a sound foundation.

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The investment cost of the facility's first phase is 102 million dollars, and it is being built in the Siirt Organized Industrial Zone as a Turkish-Qatari partnership. When it operates at full capacity, reaching 90 thousand tons, it will meet 40 percent of Turkey's zinc needs.

Turkey currently imports all of its zinc needs from abroad, and its annual consumption is 250 thousand tons. Meanwhile, a large quantity of raw material extracted from zinc mines in Turkey is exported to Iran, China or other processing centers, and from there imported back in processed form and, of course, at multiplied prices.

Although zinc is a very strategic mineral, it is a matter on which we are entirely dependent on abroad. Last month the USA also included zinc, together with nickel, in its own group of strategic metals. For although the USA has a serious zinc-based industrial sector, it is an area in which it is 83 percent dependent on abroad.

Turkey's imports, known to be at least 250 thousand tons, currently cost Turkey roughly 1 billion dollars.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DISCOVERY OF RICH UNDERGROUND RESOURCES

From the moment the facility begins production, it aims to continue its investment to meet the remaining 160 thousand tons of demand as well and reach a capacity of 250 thousand tons. That is, all the necessary planning for the facility that has opened to expand has already been made, and with the Turkish-Qatari partnership structure the financing of this work has also been laid out. For that reason, the facility opened today should be seen not as a single facility but as the first step of an investment drive whose continuation will keep coming. The mineral wealth in the region, particularly in Siirt, Şırnak, Bitlis and Hakkari, is enough to produce far more. So the opening of this facility can in fact also be seen as important good news for the participation of Turkey's mineral wealth in the production process with high added value.

A SERIOUS INDUSTRIAL ECO-SYSTEM WILL EMERGE IN THE REGION

Thus the Siirt Zinc smelting plant is the first step of an investment that will continue until 2024 and is estimated to reach as much as 500 million dollars. A significant part of these investments has already been undertaken and planned by the group making the investment. Indeed, on today's opening day, our esteemed President will also lay the foundations of two more factories, one a Lead-Silver plant and the other a Sulfuric acid plant, as a result and continuation of the same venture. These facilities are being established as the inevitable consequence of the zinc smelting plant and are based on a strong feasibility.

However, a part of these investments will also come about through the industrial eco-system that will form together with this facility and its continuation. It can already be seen that a multi-layered industrial eco-system will emerge, producing goods that rely solely on the metals these facilities will produce. Investments to be made in galvanizing, Zamak and other fields are already lining up to invest in the region thanks to the advantages this facility will provide.

500 MILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT AND JOBS FOR 7,500 PEOPLE BY 2024

The first numerical picture of the contribution all this will make to employment is as follows: when the first step of this investment is taken, employment will have been provided for 3,000 people, 500 at the factory in Siirt and 2,500 in the supply chain extending from the mines in Siirt, Şırnak and Hakkari to the facility. Together with the other investments to be completed by 2024, this employment is projected to reach as many as 7,500 people. This, of course, is aside from the other economic and social side effects of this employment. It is well known that the most important way of ensuring that the serious industrial development Turkey has achieved lately is not concentrated only in the West is to spread industry across the country. This new move is a very important step taken on this road.

When one considers that unemployment in the Southeast is several times that in the West, it is better understood how important this is. Youth unemployment in particular is at its extreme. It stands at 32 percent in Siirt. One of the most important steps in the struggle against terror is to make real investments that will reduce unemployment. The raw material of the zinc and lead the facility will produce is supplied from Hakkâri and Şırnak. This shows the important role it will play in national integration together with regional integration. From the foothills of the Cudi, Kato and Herekol mountains, no longer terror but productive labor that will build the country will emanate.

Public employment in the Southeast is, unfortunately, the most important door against unemployment. In return, when the region's rich resources are set in motion, it is also possible to produce very serious alternatives to this employment.

A STRONG TECHNOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTION TO TURKEY

Meanwhile, the facility was built in a record time of 16 months. The foundation of the Zinc Factory in Siirt was laid on 11 January 2020 in a ceremony attended by our Minister of Industry, Mr. Mustafa Varank, and our Minister of Energy, Mr. Fatih Dönmez. Construction work on the site began in August 2020 and, despite all the restrictions of the Corona measures, continued at full speed without a single pause until it was brought to this level.

During the construction of the facility, significant technology transfer and research-and-development experience was gained for Turkey. Under the management of Fikret Baydarman, the young and idealistic businessman from Siirt who is the Turkish partner of the investment, a new and more advanced model was produced on top of similar facilities examined in Iran, China, Ireland and England. With dozens of engineers working within the company's research-and-development unit, an invaluable body of know-how and technology has been added to Turkey's national wealth for the other metal-production facilities planned to be established from now on.

A GIFT OF GRATITUDE FROM THE PEOPLE OF SIIRT TO THEIR BROTHER-IN-LAW

The President's destiny-line with Siirt is well known. It is the city both because his esteemed wife is from Siirt and because it is where he recited the poem that brought him a ban from politics and led him to prison, and where, after being elected again, he entered parliament for the first time. Since this facility is possible within the opportunities and the development horizon laid out by our esteemed President, it is both a gift of loyalty to his fellow townspeople from Siirt and a gift of gratitude to him from the investors from Siirt.

I thank very much everyone who took part in and contributed to this investment, which I happened to support from one side. May it be auspicious and blessed for our country.