Food partnership with Japan during a heavy agenda

We are proceeding in a very warm agenda, such as Turkish diplomats and drivers being taken hostage, the spreading of clashes in Iraq and the nomination of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu as the joint presidential candidate of Turkey’s two major opposition parties.

During such a heavy agenda, a serious partnership with Japan in the field of food was agreed on the other day. Japan’s number one pasta producer Nisshin Seifun Group and the country’s fifth biggest holding Marubeni and Nuh’un Ankara Makarnası, a well-known Turkish company, have formed a food company called “Nisshin Seifun Turkey,” which will start production in Ankara.

In a ceremony also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan and Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) chair Rıfat Hisarcıklıoğlu, whose family are the owners of Nuh’un Ankara Makarnası. It was an exceptional occasion, and actually, the only one Hisarcıklıoğlu has attended since he has been head of the TOBB for the last 13 years. He said the company was founded in 1946 and this partnership was a new step forward.

Production will be made in Ankara, he said, adding the partnership will use local products and a local workforce: “We plan to export 100 percent of the production. We have formed an exportation company that will see to it that the added value stays in the country.”

Nisshin Seifun Turkey will produce dried pasta and sell it to the Japanese market; additional pasta production for Japan and dried pasta production will be sold internationally. It will also produce and sell pasta-related products, such as sauces and ready-mixes.

Hisarcıklıoğlu said Marubeni will be a major support in international...