Board Chairman, Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association
Yavuz Işık
Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association (THBB) as the umbrella organization acts as
the leader and representative of the sector. Would you tell us the foundation, up to today activities, and operations of the Association? The Association also conduct active operations in training. Would you also mention your projects and efforts in this respect?
Turkish ready-mixed concrete sector is rather young in comparison to other countries. Popularization of readymixed concrete production in Turkey is in the second half of the eighties. Founded in 1988, our Association is a sectoral organization pursuing production and utilization of high quality, correct, environmental friendly and sustainable concrete required for constructing safe and durable buildings in the country for 32 years. Any company to be a member of our Association is obliged to produce according to the standard in all their readymixed concrete facilities, to obtain QAS (Quality Assurance System) Compliance Certificate subject to constant and spot checks of Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association’s QAS Economic Enterprise (“KGS”), to maintain and operate an adequate laboratory, and completely fulfill all technical, environmental, occupational health and safety, legislative and ethical criteria. Of 67 million cubic meters of concrete produced in our country, 65 % is inspected by KGS. This ratio is rather high, but not satisfactory for us. Our objective is to increase this ratio to hundred percent in order to increase safe buildings.
Researches on concrete are conducted also at the accredited construction materials laboratory of our association in addition to universities. Our laboratory founded by our association in 2007 works on such projects and R&D to contribute to the sector with its numerous academicians and experienced staff at Yıldız Technical University TechnoPark.
In the recent years, we established Turkish Ready- Mixed Concrete Association Concrete Research, Development, and Technology Information Center in our laboratory. With THBB Concrete R&D, and Technology Information Center, our country reached to an important position in the concrete R&D. The Center was created with partnership of Yıldız Technical University in subsidization of the Innovative and Creative Istanbul Financial Incentive Program of ISTKA operating under coordination of Republic of Turkey Ministry of Industry and Technology. ISTAC (Istanbul Çevre Yönetimi Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Şirketi; a joint stock company), Istanbul Technical University, and Boğaziçi University also contributed to the project as participants.
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material worldwide. Therefore, sustainable concrete is critical for our future. Thus, in Turkey, we focused on its sustainability synchronously with the world. Our association has been qualified to be “Regional System Operator” in 2017 Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) established in Switzerland at the end of 2016.At the same time, THBB Quality Assurance System (KGS) became a “Certification Authority.”
In order to attain the goal of high quality concrete production, it is essential to improve the training quality. Accordingly, for many years, we organize certified training programs and seminaries for the sector, employees, and concrete users within the association in order to answer the qualified personnel need of the sector. Since 1994, pump and transit-mixer operators, plant operators and laboratory technicians are trained at the certified training programs of our association. More than 18 thousand people have attended to such training programs up until today. These training programs contribute to the production complying with the occupational health and safety requirements.
Having organized training programs and seminaries for sector employees and concrete users, our association founded Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association Occupational Qualification and Certification Center (“THBB MYM”) in 2015 in order for providing tests and certification pursuant to the Law for Occupational Qualification Board. THBB MYM has been accredited by Turkish Accreditation Agency (TÜRKAK) in 2016 in the scope of National Qualifications for Concrete-Makers.
What are the recent outstanding works and projects of the Associations?
As Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association, we are in the process of an exhaustive Earthquake Performance Report. Turkey is positioned at such a location that destructive earthquakes can be faced any time. Therefore, it is essential to design and construct all the buildings earthquake-resistant. The owners of almost all the buildings in Turkey do not know if their buildings are ready for an earthquake. In evaluation the quality of construction materials, in particular, concrete, Turkish Ready- Mixed Concrete Association has taken on an important task as one of the leading professional organizations. It is able to draw up an elaborate and characteristic Earthquake Report (Report on Earthquake Performance Analysis of Buildings) for any property owner, building manager, engineering office, municipality, and local administrations as well as public institutions, wondering about their buildings’ strength against earthquake.
How would you evaluate general organization and position of construction sector and correspondingly, concrete sector in Turkey?
Our ready-mixed concrete sector is rather young in comparison to other countries. While 1.5 million cubic meters of concrete being produced yearly in the year 1988 when our association was founded, however, in recent years, the production was increased and reached to a peak production of 115 million cubic meters in 2017.In recent years, along with the slackening of works in the construction sector, a shrinkage occurred in concrete production, and in 2019, only 67 million cubic meters of concrete was produced in Turkey, 65 % of ready-mixed concrete production is realized by our members. Although this ratio is rather high, we are not satisfied with it. We aim to inspect all the concrete produced in the country in order for ensuring safe housing production.
Having founded and developed the ready-mixed concrete sector, our association made our sector an exemplary one in Europe and the world today. According to 2018 data obtained from European Ready-Mixed Concrete Organization (ERMCO), Turkey produces 100 million cubic meters of concrete alone, while the total amount of production of entire European Union countries is 250.4 million cubic meters. Turkey, with such amount of production, is the number one among EU countries, whereas Germany is the second with 52.8 million cubic meters while France is the third with 39.7 million cubic meters of production. Since 2009, Turkey with such amount of production has maintained the first rank in concrete production in Europe and the third largest ready-mixed concrete producer of the world. Not only in terms of quantity, but in terms of durability class of the concrete used, Turkey is the leader. In consideration of the durability classes of concrete used, Turkey is above the EU average in the durability classes of C25/30-C30/37 and C35/45 and above.
You also have pioneering works with respect to utilization of concrete in varying areas such as roads. Would you please tell us about your Concrete Roads Project?
Presently, concrete is the most commonly used construction material. Numerous buildings standing for thousands of years were built using concrete. Concrete is a product the durability of which is proven. One of the most important usage areas of concrete is road or ground paving material. In such way of utilization, we can speak of highways with concrete superstructure (concrete roads), runway concretes at airports, and industrial ground concretes. In Turkey, almost all airport runways are concrete, and furthermore, our industrialists have already discovered to use concrete at factory floors long ago due to durability and cost efficient maintenance of concrete. Nevertheless, despite having widely used in the world, concrete roads are not common in our country yet.
Concrete roads can be built in our country utilizing 100 % domestic and national products and resources. Thus, dependence on foreign currencies and current deficit originated from asphalt and bitumen will be averted. In Turkey with intense heavy vehicle traffic and seasonal changes, concrete roads stand out as a very important alternative in terms of durability and long-lasting features. For instance, pavement of an over-125 year street in USA is concrete; some of concrete roads built by Germans before and after the WW II are still in use. Furthermore, concrete roads increase traffic safety due to reduction of braking distance and traction performance on wet surfaces, while providing a environment-friendly solution to human health due to its fireresistance and non-emission property.
Turkey is such a country highly advantageous and self-sufficient in concrete road construction when it comes to resources and engineering. Every company being a member of Turkish Ready-Mixed Concrete Association produces in compliance with European criteria. Therefore, our members have the capacity and knowledge to supply concrete for highways when concrete roads project are in full realization.
Not only the road network such as highways and state roads, but also for intercity and rural roads, concrete roads are in service. At the present time, Roller-Compacted Concrete (RCC) road construction is a nice alternative for such roads, and preferred particularly by municipalities and provincial special administrations in our country in recent years. The most important advantage of RCC roads is to be built by utilization of traditional asphalt road construction equipment (asphalt finishers and compactors).
What is the impact of the recent developments and COVID-19 pandemic on the sector? What are is your forecast for incoming days?
THBB Ready-Mixed Concrete Index, which is the leading indicator of the construction sector, proved that June was rather busy for the construction sector. Ready Mixed Concrete Activity Index reached a historical peak in June, and accordingly, June was the busiest month for activities of the construction sector after a long time. Increases in Expectation Index and correspondingly, Confidence Index indicated that June was highly positive in every aspect for the construction sector.
There was a substantial demand of housing loan in June due to credit facilities of the state banks for up to 15 years, 0.64 % per month for new buildings and 0.74 % for second-hand buildings. The Minister of Treasury and Finance informed that in the first 20 days of June, and 101 thousands of people utilized 25 billion TRY for housing loans from the state banks. Accordingly, a historical record of housing loan balance of banking sector was reached with 230.9 billion Turkish Lira. Such booming in demand also affected the supply side, resulting in starting of new constructions. In the days to come, should there be no decline in the success of Turkey in combating the pandemics, continuation of the acceleration in the construction sector would not be surprising. Construction sector will contribute to the national economy substantially in the second half of the year by compensating its earlier losses in employment and growth, in particular. June PMI Index (Purchasing Manager’s Index) raised to 53.9 exceeding the threshold of 50, and attaining the highest figure of the last 28 months, returned to its levels before COVID-19 pandemic. Consumer Confidence Index also substantially increased in June. Consumer Confidence increased by 5.2 % in comparison to the previous month; while it was 59.5 in May, it was 62.6 in June. Thus, it exceeded the pre-pandemic figure. In consideration of increase in the consumer index , we observe upswing in all subcomponents. The least increase was observed in financial expectations .While expecting improvements in general economic conditions, consumers do not expect a substantial increase in their own financial situations. Accordingly, plausibility of purchasing a housing in the coming 12 months was also low. Despite such increase in the consumer confidence, having the figure still under the threshold of 100 is worth to noting. Despite that the main street confidence also increased in June, it is still far away from the pre-pandemic figures.
Electricity consumption level being an important indicator for economic buoyancy needs to be monitored. Displaying a limited decline of two per thousand in March when the pandemic started, electricity consumption decreased by 15.4 % in April and 16.7 % in May. Shrinkage in June was 2.6 %.With this respect, despite that energy consumption as the indicator of economic activities indicates an improvement in June, it still shows that current situation is still unsatisfactory.
Lastly, capacity usage reached to 66 with an increase of 5 % in June in comparison to the previous month. The current level of capacity usage, being 77 in the same month of 2019 and 75 in the pre-pandemic period, is not satisfactory comparing to both pre-pandemic and the last year.
The latest Fitch’s report states that Turkey will shrink by 3 %.On the other hand, the World Bank revised its forecast as a shrinkage of 3.8 percent for Turkey in its June 2020 Global Economic Outlook Report. IMF’s shrinkage forecast for Turkey is 5 %.OECD forecasts that Turkey will complete the year 2020 with 4.8 percent shrinkage, and in case of a second wave of pandemic, economic recession will reach to 8.1 percent. In case that a second wave is not encountered, shrinkage forecasts of 3 to 5 % anticipated for Turkey will be revised most likely in the long view and drawn to lower ratios. In the event of continuation of buoyancy in construction sector, both employment and growth figures for Turkey will reach to much better levels. Employment in the construction sector in March based on the latest employment report was one million 290 thousand. It is possible that this figure will most likely increase to 1.6 million. Construction and related sectors are like a life buoy nowadays for Turkey struggling with unemployment issue.
You have stakeholders and collaborators in different sectoral institutions both abroad and in the country. What are your position and projects in such efforts?
As the association, one of our objective is to pursue representing our sector in the best way possible, not only in the national level, but also internationally. Therefore, since 1991, we are a full member of ERMCO – European Ready-Mixed Concrete Organization, a very important organization for our sector. European Ready- Mixed Concrete Organization (ERMCO) is an international organization performing its works by keeping track of any development concerning closely to our sector, and determining the agenda in all relevant institutions and organization such as The European Cement Association (CEMBUREAU), Concrete Initiative, European Concrete Platform, European Concrete Paving Association (EUPAVE), and International Federation for Structural Concrete (FIB).Since 2014, we carried out activities for hearing of the voice of our members in Europe by taking part in ERMCO’s Presiding Committee. ERMCO Presidency, which I have taken to Turkey in 2016 led to very important developments for our country and our ready-mixed concrete industry besides gaining prestige to our country. Thus, Turkish companies are able to closely follow up any new trend easily in the world, and come together and exchange ideas with concrete producers from all over the world during the activities we organize. As the presidency of ERMCO, we convey demands and agendas of Turkish concrete producers to the authorities in Europe, and contribute and direct any concrete policy issued in European Union countries. We discuss the issues affecting globally our sector.
By closely following up the agendas in Europe, we in ERMCO pursue bringing in the latest developments to our country as well as taking any problem of our sector to the agenda of European institutions in order for finding solutions thereto. As THBB, we continue participating in committee meetings along with ERMCO Board, and conducting the secretariat of committees together with ERMCO Technical Management. We represent ERMCO in the meetings with European Concrete Platform, European Concrete Paving Association (EUPAVE), European Network for Silica (NEPSI), and Concrete Initiative, etc. platforms.
Since 2017, our association is the member of Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) founded in Switzerland in 2016, and conducts its studies in sustainability as the “Regional System Operator.” At the same time, THBB Quality Assurance System (KGS) also continues its certification works as CSC’s “Certification Authority.”Up to the present, total 600 production facilities have been licensed and 372 facilities certified around the world in 4 years. In Turkey, 4 cement factories and 6 concrete facilities have obtained such valuable certificate by joining to the system of Efficient Utilization of Resources. Once more on this occasion, I would like to invite all ready-mixed concrete, cement, aggregate, and prefabricate sectors to join to this system.
