ABSTRACT
Major ports in Turkey are owned and operated by two state institutions, Turkish State Railways and the Turkish Maritime Organisation and regularly suffer from heavy financial losses. This chapter reviews the privatised ports in Turkey in an attempt to highlight their development and the importance of privatisation within the industry. The operators of privatised ports can make port investment decisions with some flexibility and according to their priority requirements. The major private ports amongst the 60 non-state owned ports in Turkey are mostly situated on the Sea of Marmara to the northwest of the country. Privatisation has been a key policy element and was adopted in Turkey after rapid progress in many industries and economic liberalisation policies after the 1980s. Privatisation of the seven ports of the Turkish Maritime Organisation was completed in 1998 with most of them being situated on the coast of the Black Sea.
