German OEM opens factory in Turkey, launches website dedicated to volunteering.

Turkey Positioned as Export Hub With Plant Opening

thyssenkrupp has opened its first escalator production plant in Turkey, located in the Dilovasi Organized Industrial Zone in the northern Marmara province of Kocaeli, Daily Saba reported. Accompanied by a training campus, the EUR200-million (US$237-million) facility will produce 1,200 escalators annually, positioning Turkey as an escalator export hub for the Middle East, Europe and other parts of Turkey. Sporting “Made in Turkey” stamps, the equipment will use 50% locally made parts, increasing to more than 90% in coming years. Arda Ermut, president of the Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey (ISPAT), observed thyssenkrupp’s investment is in line with the agency’s commitment to “prioritizing strategic sectors that reduce dependency on imports and boost exports.” thyssenkrupp Elevator Turkey General Manager Turgay Şarli observed the investment underscores the company’s confidence in Turkey and includes a “giant ecosystem” of Turkish suppliers and contractors.  

New Website Showcases CSR Efforts

thyssenkrupp Elevator has unveiled a new website, perspectives.urban-hub.com, to highlight stories about its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives: specifically, Project SEED, developed in partnership with SOS Children’s Villages International (ELEVATOR WORLD, January 2018) and initially focused on 100 young people in Colombia, Brazil and India. thyssenkrupp Elevator employees volunteer to lead courses and serve as mentors to young people with the goal of helping them find and keep good jobs. The company stated:

“Corporate volunteering emphasizes the empowerment of employees to take an active role in making the world a better place by enabling them to contribute outside the workplace within a defined framework of structured assistance, using a little bit of their time and a lot of their passion.”

Hyundai Elevator Launches Turkish Sales Strategy

Aiming to aggressively expand its Turkish market presence in 2018, Hyundai Elevator (HE) has launched a new sales strategy that involves securing more orders for elevators with speeds of 105 mpm and buildings with 20 or fewer stories. This is in addition to a strategy targeting developers of large projects, which helped result in installation volume rising “exponentially” in 2016 to approximately 1,000. In 2017, HE focused sales efforts on government entities, private developers and large construction companies, winning work on such projects as Metropol and Water Garden, both in Istanbul. HE has a 12-member sales team based in Istanbul, as well as offices in Ankara and Izmir. After winning 225 elevator installation orders in the first two months of 2018, HE intends to join the top three companies in the Turkish market “at the earliest possible date.”