As Limak, we are enjoying the
pride of having left 2016 behind as a busy and successful year. While
leaving our fortieth year behind, we continued to grow in all sectors
where we operate and reached even closer to our goal of being included
among firsts. Our Group completed a highly efficient year with the
projects undertaken domestically and abroad.
As the Group, our objective is to
be included among the top three on a regional basis, in our strategic
sectors that may be listed as energy, cement and construction. Africa
and the Balkans emerge to the forefront as our growth areas where we are
rapidly investing in, outside of Turkey.
In our infrastructure investments,
we continue to increase the operations at the LimakPort İskenderun and
Pristina Adem Jashari International Airport, which we are operating, in
parallel with our capacity.
Recently, we are also enjoying the
well-deserved pride of contributing in the strategic projects of
Turkey. From these, we will complete the first phase of the Istanbul New
Airport project, which will eventually reach a passenger capacity of
200 million, in 2018 and take it into operation. Meanwhile, we have
completed the Ankara High-Speed Train Station project, the first and
only high speed train station project of Turkey that we had undertaken
with two partners, in 2016 and started its operation. The construction
and operation of the Northern Marmara Highway 4th Section Project,
interconnecting the additional roads of the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge in
Istanbul is also included among those that stand out in the many
projects we have undertaken. In addition, we have started to work on the
Lot 4 (Eskişehir-Greece section) of the TANAP-Trans Anatolia Natural
Gas Pipeline Project, which was awarded to the joint venture where we
are a part of. Our 1,100-bed capacity hotel construction in Cyprus is
continued and we aim to open it in 2017.
From our investments in the field
of energy, our investments are continued for the construction of the 100
MW Kargı Dam and HEPP and as aimed to increase the capacity of the
Hamitabat Natural Gas Combined Cycle Plant. We plan to complete both
projects in 2017. In the meantime, our group has been awarded the tender
for the Gürsöğüt Dam and HEPP project that will have 56 MW power and
the construction is planned to be started, following the project
development studies.
We have completed the Cairo
International Airport Terminal Building No. 2 project, one of our
prominent projects abroad, and the Banja Dam and HEPP, which is one of
the two dam projects we have undertaken in Albania, in 2016. We have
started the Kuwait International Airport Terminal II Project, which
poses as the biggest contract awarded to a Turkish contracting company
so far with a contract price of 4 billion 600 million dollars and is one
of the most prestigious projects in the world. Meanwhile, our Ukraine
Dnipro subway construction project, the contract for which we had signed
in 2016, is continued. We are building two cement plants in Africa. We
have already taken the factory in Mozambique into operation, while the
construction of the project we have undertaken in the Ivory Coast is
continued. In addition, we plan to complete the Aeroport International
Blaise-Diagne Airport Project in Dakar, capitol of Senegal, in 2017. We
will also operate this airport for 20 years following construction.
We are following up on new
projects outside of Turkey, namely in East Europe, Africa, Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia, in addition to our numerous projects that are in progress.
We continue our efforts to
minimize environmental impacts in the value chain in all fields we
operate, and to create value for our social stakeholders and the society
for a livable future, in addition to our successful economic
performance in our operational and commercial activities. We follow a
balanced and environment friendly growth strategy, acting on the
principle of “meeting the needs of today without risking the capacity of
the future generations to meet their own needs” in all our activities.
With this vision, we published our 2014-2015 Sustainability Report,
which is our second GRI approved sustainability report. Our report,
which also included our practices for compliance with the principles of
the United Nations Global Compact that we have signed, was found worthy
of the gold prize, which is the second biggest prize, as a result of the
evaluations in the 2015/16 Vision Awards organized every year by one of
the most prestigious public communications platforms of the world - the
American Communication Professionals League. We have already started to
work on our sustainability report that will cover 2016 and 2017 with
this motivation, by updating our group’s sustainability vision and
reviewing the outlines of our strategic road map. We continue our
journey as aimed to control the sustainability of our activities under
many headings, to monitor and analyze the data in this respect and offer
a reputable reference in our communications with our stakeholders.
We have established the Limak
Education Culture and Health Foundation in 2016, in order to collect all
social responsibility and aid projects we have been continuing for
years under a single roof, and ensure their continuation at a more
corporate and effective level. One of the most important projects of our
foundation in the field of education is the Engineer Girls of Turkey
project, which we have started in 2015 as a comprehensive and long-term
project aimed to support women to take more part in the field of
engineering. With this project, we support school girls who currently
are or will study engineering from many respects throughout their
education, in order to ensure that our girls take more part in this
field and invest in the bright future of Turkey. We are continuing the
university leg of the project, which we had started with 40 students,
with 54 students from all over the country from Istanbul to Erzurum.
Meanwhile, awareness raising activities in the high-school leg e
initiated in 2017 in Hatay province.
Another project we have started as
the Limak Foundation is the Gülseren Özdemir Outstanding Achievement
Scholarship Program. We aim to contribute in the education and
development of the youth in secondary education, studying with success
despite financial impossibilities, with this project.
On the other hand, we are proud to
note that the KEDS Academy, founded by the Kosovo Electricity
Distribution Company (KEDS) where we are a partner of, has given its 3rd
term graduates and LimakASI, within the organization of the Pristina
Adem Jashari International Airport that we operate, has given its first
graduates. These two projects that have been found worthy of many awards
have been able to offer an important solution to the unemployment
problem in the country.
As we leave our fortieth year
behind, we will continue to carry our group and our country even
further, together with our employees and our stakeholders, with whom we
walk together and have signed many economic and social achievements so
far.