Oil refiner Tüpraş leads Turkey’s industry league

Refinery giant Tüpraş retained its longtime leadership as Turkey's biggest industrial enterprise with production-based sales worth 58.6 billion Turkish Liras ($8.4 billion), the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (İSO) said on May 26. 

"According to data, more than half of our firms in the İSO 500 list are grouped in three sectors; 118 of them in the 'base metals and machine manufacturing,' 85 firms in the 'road and sea vehicles and supply industries,' and 65 firms in the 'chemical, plastic products' sectors," said İSO head Erdal Bahçıvan in a presentation to reporters in Istanbul yesterday.

With production-based sales of 45.2 billion liras ($6.5 billion), car manufacturer Ford ranked second in the list of Turkey's Top 500 Industrial Enterprises in 2020, the presentation showed.

It was followed by Oyak Renault, another carmaker, with 31.2 billion liras ($4.5 billion) last year.

The top 10 industrial giants racked up nearly a quarter of the production-based sale revenues of the top 500 firms.

"While the rise in equity was promising, the current debt-equity ratio [881 billion liras / 407 billion liras] continued to be a chronic problem," it said.

Bahçıvan noted that while Turkey saw a robust credit expansion of 35 percent last year, the financial debt burden of the top 500 industrial companies rose only 23 percent.

Exports of Turkey's industrial giants at the list decreased 12.8 percent year on year to $64.1 billion, the report revealed, saying their operating profit increased by 55 percent, employment by 2.9 percent and research and development expenditure by 5 percent.

The work force of the top 500 industrial firms reached 717,000 people. The payroll total was 78.3 billion liras ($9...