
Minister of Industry and Technology Kacır, who was the special interview guest of TRT News, noted the following regarding the $1 billion investment agreement made with the Chinese company BYD, the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer;
Yesterday, in the presence of our President, we signed an agreement for investment in Turkey with the leader of the board of directors of BYD, the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer.
We visited China in December. We met with both the ministers of the Chinese government and valuable companies in China, especially those working on new generation vehicles and battery technologies. One of the companies we had a meeting with was BYD. BYD is a company that attracts attention at the global level. We are talking about a brand that produced 3 million 100 thousand vehicles last year. They only produce new generation powerful vehicles. They only produce hybrid and electric vehicles.
We are talking about a brand that has reached more than twice the capacity of its closest competitor in this field. We also learned during our visit that BYD is a brand that creates 110 patents every day with its 32 thousand engineers. This is a great ability. We very much wanted this capability to meet with Turkey's R&D and innovation ecosystem and Turkey's production infrastructure. We have had a very intense and close dialogue with BYD. We held mutual visits and meetings. Yesterday, we signed this agreement together with the BYD board leader in the presence of our President.
We care about this: Türkiye should target high technology in all departments and prioritize works that address the transformation in technology. We actually have a very strong automotive industry. 13 brands produce in Turkey. 8 of them are global brands. We increased the number of automobiles produced in a year in Turkey from 300 thousand to 1 million 400 thousand during the AK Party governments. These are our strengths. Besides, we have new opportunities or threats before us. If you cannot achieve the transformation, the opportunities before you may turn into threats and you may face the threat of losing your industry and export potential. A major transformation in the automotive industry has actually entered our lives with the new generation of electric vehicles. We have determined it as a priority to achieve this transformation in our automotive industry, which exports 35 billion dollars a year and is the export leader.
Turkey has tremendous potential. Turkey has qualified human resources. This is an advantage that no other country in the region has. We have a tremendous geographical position. We have made tremendous infrastructure investments in the last 20 years in order for this geographical position to trigger export potential. We have taken our country's access to global markets much further.