KOCAELİ ; “The City that Lives and Nurtures”

Throughout history, Kocaeli has been a gateway connecting Europe with the Middle East and Asia. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Bithynia and a crucial trade centre for the Eastern Roman Empire.

Today, along the commercially active Black Sea and the Marmara Sea shorelines, Kocaeli boasts 35 ports and industrial facility docks, making it a logistics heaven and a gateway to global markets. The province is a hub for both national and intercontinental routes. It is adjacent to Istanbul, one of the world’s largest metropolitan centres and close to two international airports; Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen(SAW), 45 km from the city centre respectively. Only 14 km. away is the Cengiz Topel airport serving purely domestic routes. Kocaeli is home to more than 2,000,000 people and is one of Turkey’s most densely populated cities. This is also the home port for the Turkish Navy, demonstrating the continuing historic and strategic importance of the province in military terms.

The defining characteristic of Kocaeli, however, is that it is a “City of Industry and Investment.” Almost without parallel globally, 13% of Kocaeli’s GDP is generated from its manufacturing industry. The province’s industry based economy accounts for 13% of Turkey’s Industrial Production.

In the past few years the province has developed as a hotspot for the automotive industry, with investments by the sector’s heavy hitters such as: Ford, Hyundai, Honda and Isuzu. The major league players of the tyre and rubber sector such as; Goodyear, Pirelli, Lassa and Bridgestone all operate in Kocaeli. Today Kocaeli hosts 3.474 industrial investments of which 327 have been established with international capital. Turkey’s largest enterprise, the Tüpraş Petroleum Refinery Plant, is also located in Kocaeli, where the province supplies 27% of the national chemical industry (petro-chemical included). 84 of Turkey’s 500 largest enterprises are located here. Another meaningful indicator for the province is that out of Turkey’s 81 provinces, 13% of national tax revenues are collected from Kocaeli. The province has a strong potential in terms of foreign trade and it has the track record to prove it. 18,6 % of Turkey’s Foreign Trade Value is being provided by Kocaeli.

In Kocaeli there are 14 Organised Industrial Zones, 5 Technology Parks, 2 Free Trade Zones, 3 Research Institutes including TUBITAK. These advantageous investment areas are neighbouring Turkey’s greatest internal market, Istanbul. They are widely considered as the most developed industrial areas closest to the EU, the Middle East and Caucasus.

IT Valley in Gebze, Kocaeli is one of the recent developments in Kocaeli and it’s a technology development zone focused on Informatics. As the new center of technology based development in Turkey, IT Valley will house a “prototyping center, a sophisticated innovation center, Turkey’s largest entrepreneurship ecosystem and many visionary projects.

3rd Highway Project, South Highway Project, 3rd Railway Line Project, Railway Line Project To The Ports and The Organised Industrial Zones, Kosekoy Logistics Village Project are the other recent developments in our city Kocaeli.