Paper and Printing

Turkish Paper Industry

18.'inc Century Ottoman era in Turkey in Izmir and workshops established in Beykoz capitulations and they could not compete with foreign companies because of various privileges granted to foreigners are closed within a short time. The paper machine, which started production in Italy in 1846, came to our country 3 years ago from Italy in 1843. The production started in İzmir-Halkapınar, which lasted for 6 months. At that time, the fact that the trade in the hands of minorities was more attractive and the profitability of imports was effective in preventing domestic production.

It was not easy to establish our National Paper Industry even in the Republic period. As a result of the efforts of Mehmet Ali Kağıtçı, the founder of our paper industry, the first plant with a capacity of 12.000 tons / year established in İzmit in 1934 has started production in 1936 and produced the first paper in our country. SEKA, the state-owned company, increased its production capacity to 617,700 tons in 2000. After this date, SEKA has been included in the scope of privatization and it has come out of the sector due to the privatization of a large part of it until 2006.

In the Paper Industry, a capital intensive sector, the private sector entered the paper industry in the 1960s. After this year, private sector companies, which have a production power of around 15.000 tons / year, started to produce in modern and large capacity factories. At the end of 2006 paper and paperboard production capacity in Turkey, 2,779,902 tons / year it reached. The private sector factories meet their raw material needs with imported cellulose. The reason for this is that high world prices to be compared with the price of wood in Turkey and uncertainties in the supply risk arising from public enterprises are not taken by the private sector. Brown paper producing factories use secondary fibers (recycled paper) as raw materials. In 2006, 1,670,000 tons of waste paper was recovered. The waste paper recovery rate is 40%.