MKA Development and Project Agency President Tahir Babat Explains His Projects

Medine Baykaş, from Medya Ege, conducted an interview with Tahir Babat, the President of MKA Development and Project Agency, regarding the supports available to industrialists to increase production capacities, boost employment, and encourage expansion into foreign markets amidst the challenging times faced by the production sector due to the global economic crisis.

Could you briefly introduce the MKA Development and Project Agency?

The MKA Development and Project Consultancy Agency is an establishment by EU project and investment experts to provide project preparation, consultancy, and training services to the private sector, civil society organizations, public institutions, and local governments. Our agency, operating in 81 provinces since its establishment in 2015, has investment support offices in 20 provinces from Izmir to Van. Through successful projects at the local, regional, and national levels, we have contributed to the country’s economy.

What kinds of projects have you undertaken nationwide, and what contributions have your projects made to the national economy?

Since 2015, MKA has provided sector-specific project support to public institutions, civil society organizations, companies, farmers, and women and young entrepreneurs. We have supported public institutions in infrastructure, superstructure, and urban planning projects. In the private sector, our support has been mainly directed towards agriculture, rural development, and entrepreneurship investments. In total, we have undertaken over six hundred projects, with a contribution of over half a billion Turkish Lira to the country’s economy through both domestic and international projects, generating thousands of jobs.

As a dedicated expert in this field, do you believe that the incentives reach their intended recipients?

Unfortunately, the EU and domestic support packages and incentives do not reach their intended recipients. I can outline the main reasons for this as follows:

1. The project requirement in the specifications of the programs.
2. The relatively recent establishment of the project system in Turkey and the inadequacy of its infrastructure.
3. The insistence of public institutions on traditional bureaucracy and their failure to provide sufficient information to citizens. Inadequate visual announcements and advertising on the subject.
4. The lack of project expertise and professional consultancy in Turkey, and insufficient attention given to consultancy firms.

Due to the above factors, millions of dollars in grant incentive support packages provided to public institutions, the business world, farmers, women, and young entrepreneurs are not being utilized effectively.

What are the most significant challenges in your sector?

While the project system and agency sector have been implemented in Europe since the 1960s, they have only been in place in Turkey for about ten years. The project system in our country emerged with Turkey’s EU accession process.

The main task of Development Agencies is to support collaboration between public, private sector, and civil society organizations to unleash local potential.

However, the most significant challenges in our sector are the shortage of professional experts in project development and, consequently, reaching investors, as well as the difficulty in convincing our citizens to embrace the project system.

Recently, you have had two major projects in the Education and Mining sectors, which have attracted attention in our country. Can you provide information about them? What kind of support did you provide?

As I mentioned at the beginning of our interview, MKA has implemented significant investment projects both domestically and internationally. However, in recent days, two of our projects, which are significant for both the national economy and the education sector, have been approved and put into service for our people. The first one is METÇET Mining. Our mining project was approved within a period of about six months, thanks to the efforts of an effective team of experts. While preparing our project, we prioritized human life in mining regulations. Taking into account the reasons for the heartbreaking mining accidents in recent years, we prepared our project with expert foresight to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and developed our project accordingly.

During the same period, we also supported the education sector, which faced serious financial and moral problems during the pandemic. One of these projects was the support we provided to MEKTEBİM schools. Like all our other projects, we designed a modern educational institution project aimed at training successful young people in science, technology, and social sciences to reach the level of civilization our country deserves.

In addition to the significant support we provided in terms of 10 years of Social Security Institution (SGK), taxes, VAT, investment site allocation, customs duties, and low-interest loans, the approximate cost of the two projects amounted to 74 million 660 thousand Turkish Liras. Two thousand five hundred people will be employed in our two projects.

Increasing production, employment, and our competitiveness through investments to be realized in our country are crucial to achieving sustainable growth and development goals. In today’s world, countries have formed various economic unions on a global and regional scale as members of international trade, shaping their economic policies and institutions not independently but in line with the regulations of these organizations. The incentive policies implemented in our country are also designed within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union (EU), Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and other bilateral and multilateral agreements. We will continue to inform you about the investment and export incentive practices implemented in our country in general.