2026 WİLL BE A YEAR OF EXPORT AND EXPANSİON DRİVE FOR İZBAŞ

İZBAŞ Chairman of the Board Eyüp Sevimli stated that the four major investments planned to become operational this year will give momentum to the Zone’s export and trade volume.

Having closed 2025 with a transaction volume of 606 million dollars and exports of 270 million dollars, İzmir Free Zone (İZBAŞ) ranks among the leading export centers of İzmir and the Aegean Region.

After the occupancy rate across the Zone reached 90 percent, İZBAŞ accelerated its expansion-area work and registered the adjacent 153,000-square-meter plot of land under its title in November 2024. İZBAŞ aims to begin infrastructure work after the land is officially granted free zone status by the Ministry of Trade in 2026 and will raise its export bar with four major investments planned to become operational this year. Once the expansion area becomes operational, these allocations can readily be made to investors requesting investment areas of 20,000 square meters or more.

4 MAJOR INVESTMENTS NEXT

Commenting on 2026, Eyüp Sevimli, Chairman of the Board of İZBAŞ İzmir Free Zone Founder and Operator Inc., stated that the Turkish business community had left a very difficult year behind and said he believed investments would gain momentum together with the disinflation process expected to take hold from the second half of the year onward.

Sevimli stated that the investments to become operational in İzmir Free Zone in 2026 include the compressor manufacturing facility of Kaishan, a company with Chinese capital, being built on an area of 22,000 square meters; the factory investments of Gico Product Service Solutions and Alpar Metal, which manufacture for globally leading brands in the automotive supply industry; and Roll Nova İzmir Demir Çelik. He emphasized that their investment focus is on companies that are export-oriented and carry out high-value-added production.

CRITICISM OF THE “THREE HIGHS”

Adding that, in their meetings with domestic- and foreign-capital companies planning to invest in İZBAŞ, they had encountered an emphasis on the “three highs,” Eyüp Sevimli made the following assessment:

“Türkiye offers investors very important opportunities through its geopolitical position and proximity to target markets. However, we have a ‘three highs’ shackle tied to our feet. These appear before us as high inflation in the Turkish economy, high financing costs and high production costs. We witness that our industrialists are finding it increasingly difficult to compete in export markets and are continuing to export at the cost of incurring losses in order not to lose customers. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which entered into force as of this year, initially covers the iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizer, electricity, hydrogen and cement sectors. As a country, we export 23 billion dollars to EU countries in these sectors. We must not become complacent about this level, which corresponds to 9 percent of our 2025 exports. Gradually, all sectors will be included within this scope.”

İZBAŞ Chairman of the Board Eyüp Sevimli noted that companies that maintained their production capacity in 2025 considered themselves successful and that the Purchasing Power Index (PMI), which remained below the 50 level throughout the year, was also the clearest indicator of this contraction.

İZBAŞ CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD EYÜP SEVİMLİ:

“We are among the production centers with the best logistics capabilities not only in İzmir but also in our country. We are located 30 to 40 kilometers from the Aliağa Nemrut ports and İzmir Alsancak Port. With the added value we create, our strategic location, our sustainable investment climate and our investor-friendly business environment, we are moving forward with sure steps toward becoming one of our country’s most important export centers.”

İZBAŞ IN BRIEF

• 1,620,000 m² area
• Employment of more than 6,000 people
• A total of 165 companies: 141 domestic, 15 foreign, and 9 domestic-foreign partnerships
• Provision of titled buildings and land
• Operator company management in compliance with ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, ISO 27001:2017 and ISO 50001:2018 standards
• Location integrated with İzmir Port, Aliağa Nemrut Ports, İzmir Ring Road and the Northern Aegean Motorway