“The printing and coatings market in Turkey demonstrates a progress close to European market trends”

You are investing in the business in Turkey. Could you please describe the market for printing inks in Turkey?

Yakup Benli: In general, the printing and coatings market in Turkey demonstrates a progress close to European market trends. Additionally, due to the rapid growth of the domestic market and the increase in packed products usage quantity in the surrounding countries, it displays higher growth ratio compared to many regions of the world. Turkish market, the labelling and packaging sectors are the fastest growing industries (mainly flexo and rotogravure inks), while the publishing (printing – information) sector is shrinking. Besides that, over the last couple of years this shrinkage has occurred faster than European level.

How would you describe the competitive situation in the Turkish market for printing inks?

Benli: Not only small local producers but also global players are active in the Turkish market. Rapid technological investments continue to flow into the Turkish printing/publishing market while the diversification of packaging requirements increase the need for innovative products. Companies that realised this gap early on and invested accordingly will have the advantage. Toyo Ink Turkey is in a good state to meet the current and future demands of the Turkish market. Our Manisa facility is home to Turkey’s first and only Research & Development center for inks and coatings, which is accredited by the Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Ministry. Having utilised the knowledge accumulated by the Toyo Ink Group, we focus on the other needs that might arise apart from sector’s regular demands and continue our work to develop new products.

You will also construct a new production site for polymers. Will you produce only for your needs or will you also supply others with your polymers?

Yakup Benli

CEO of Toyo Ink Turkey

Benli: In fact, what we announced recently is building a “greenfield” ink and coatings manufacturing facility. With this facility, we will be providing faster response to the needs of our current and potential customers along with making a big contribution to ensure absolute customer satisfaction by improving the productivity and product standardisation. On the other hand, in this new facility, we will be carrying out products, which are not in our current portfolio such as lamination adhesives and will be dissolving resins for our use, under the know-how of Toyo Morton.

Thus, all these efforts will put us one step closer to our philosophy of being a “total packaging solution” provider. Also, polyurethane-based inks will be added to our product range in order to offer perfect solutions to meet more challenging conditions (high-temperature and high-pressure) in the packaging fields, such as retort applications.

This interview is part of our “Top Industry Move” article in the June issue of the European Coatings Journal. You can read the complete article in our data bank European Coatings 360.