NEWS FROM TÜRKİYE

Dunya- The groundbreaking ceremony for the factory of the new distribution transformers of the French Areva T&D Enerji Endustri AS was held in the Vehicle Supply Industry Organized Industrial Zone (TOSB) in the district of Cayirova in Kocaeli - Türkiye. With its first phase worth 30 million Euros, the investment at the total value of 66 million Euros is planned to be put into service in August 2009. The Minister of Industry and Trade Zafer Caglayan, President of Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Türkiye (ISPAT) Alpaslan Korkmaz, and the CEO of Areva T&D Daniel Marchand participated in the ceremony. Marchand delivered a speech at the ceremony and said they made this investment based on their confidence in Türkiye. Marchand said: "We are constantly developing our leadership in the area of technology. With more than 71,000 employees around the world, we are sustaining growth and development.” Areva T&D Türkiye CEO Dursun Ozman expressed that they had set out with the existing factory in Gebze in 1967 and said that they had raised the export rate up to 85% with 1600 employees. Ozman stated: "The new factory is being established with an investment worth TRY 100 million. 600 people will be recruited and 100 of these will be included in the engineering division. .. We rank 83rd amongst the largest 500 companies of Türkiye according to the figures of 2007 and we will climb up with this investment." The President of ISPAT Alpaslan Korkmaz said, as an agency that became operational 1,5 years ago, they were happy to see that the first investment was accomplished. Alpaslan Korkmaz stated:"Our target is to provide coordination. I thank Areva T&D for its decision to create 600 new recruitments. We got in contact with Areva in December 2007 and we came to a conclusion five months later, in April 2008. And we are now laying the foundation for it. We are also proud that 100 people out of the 600 will be working in the R&D area.”