E-commerce giant Amazon is set to open its first logistics center in Turkey in an effort to support local partners and businesses and to meet soaring customer demand.
The hub in Istanbul is scheduled to be launched in the fall, Amazon said in a statement. Implemented through an investment of more than US$100 million, the center will provide jobs to over 1,000 workers in the first year.
The company says it aims to support both domestic and export operations of its sales partners and SMEs with this investment, which it says is being carried out to increase the quality and speed of service.
Amazon launched in Turkey back in 2018 and says it has created around 500 jobs to date.
The company has already started the recruitment processes for the core functions such as engineering, human resources, accounting, operations and information processing (IT) for the new logistics base to be set up in the Tuzla district on Istanbul’s Asian side.
Acquisitions for customer service and logistics teams are expected to start in the coming months, it said, adding that it would continue to work with partners who already provide delivery services.
Speaking about the investment, Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu, the chairperson of Turkey’s Investment Office, said they had been working closely and supported the Amazon team both in the field and in bureaucratic processes.
Dağlıoğlu stressed Turkey is a regional center for the activities of many international investors in multiple areas such as research and development (R&D), design, production, logistics, education and management.
“Amazon’s investment decision, which will be the first logistics base in Turkey, prioritizes sustainability and green transformation and creates employment, has also become a concrete example of our rhetoric.”
“This investment is very important for the further strengthening of our e-commerce sector, which has been gaining great momentum in recent years, in the domestic market and export markets.”
“We express our gratitude to the Amazon team that trusts and invests in our country,” Dağlıoğlu noted.
For his part, Stefano Perego, Amazon’s vice president of EU operations, said the investment reaffirmed the company’s trust in Turkey.
“We are extremely excited about the more than a thousand new job opportunities that we will create in our first year by providing a modern and safe working environment with satisfactory wages and benefits,” he noted.
