24 Feb Turkish Paper Industry

The paper machine, which started production in Italy in 1846, reached our country in 1843, 3 years before Italy. The factory, which started production in Izmir, continued production for only 6 months. At that time, the more profitable trade, which was generally under the auspices of minorities, was an obstacle to domestic production.

The establishment of our paper industry caused great problems even during the republic period. The first facility with a capacity of 12,000 tons per year, established in Izmit in 1934 as a result of the efforts of Mehmet Ali Kağıtçı, the founder of the Turkish Paper Industry, started production in 1936 and produced the first paper in our country. SEKA, a public institution, increased its production capacity to 617,700 tons in 2000. After this date, SEKA was included in the scope of privatization and left the Sector due to the privatization of a large part of it until 2006.