12.02.2008

New Saudi-Turkey crane manufacturing collaboration

A SR100 million (£13.6 million) crane manufacturing facility as part of a Saudi-Turkey collaboration is being set up near Haraaj in south Jeddah.

The team, comprising Konya-based Kombassan Holding's chairman Hasim Sahin, vice chairman Ahmet San and executive committee member Serdar Bayburf, and Bulent Tasci of Ekoloji Insaat, a construction consultant, said they were on a visit to explore business prospects resulting from the ongoing construction boom and also developments related to six new cities Kingdomwide.

"The crane factory, expected to become operational within three months, will initially manufacture 50 cranes of all sizes under the Kombassan Group's 'Acar' brandname for the construction sector," said Sahin.

Acar has become the group's brandname in cranes. Acar Hydraulics produces knuckle-boom hydraulic loader cranes, telescopic mobile cranes, rotating and non-rotating tree transplanting machinery and various hydraulic equipment.

According to Sahin, the group has investments in a wide range of industrial activity including construction and construction materials, marble and mining, leather, textile, paper, carton and packaging, technology and machinery, food, supermarkets and petroleum products, as well as tourism, communications and social affairs,

It started its activities in Konya in 1989 in the printing sector. The group is on the verge of becoming a world company through its investments, which it has made in Turkey and various other countries.

"The Kombassan Group has speeded up is activities in the field of machinery because it understands the importance of machinery in world technology," Sahin said. One of the group's recent additions is a ball-bearing plant in Romania.

The group's annual turnover averages $750 million, he said, adding that it is a public company with 75,000 shareholders and has commercial offices in some Middle East and Islamic countries.