Onur Atakay
Sintek Foundig Partner
Could you briefly talk about the general structure and fields of activity of Sintek, which has been established with many years of cement industry experience and produces effective solutions in engineering, consultancy services and project development?
First of all, I wish patience and healthy days to all our friends and people in these difficult days when we experience unexpected and extraordinary developments due to Covid-19. As known, Sintek establishes turnkey industrial facilities. Our fields of activity include cement plants, power plants, WHR plants and FGDFGT plants. We have dozens of turn-key projects in our country, especially for the cement industry. However, one of the main factors that make us privileged is our overseas structuring and the services we provide on behalf of Turkish contractors abroad. As Sintek, we have official branches in Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Uzbekistan and Lithuania, and we actually have reference here. As a Turkish company and brand, we continue our efforts to be more active, especially in the CIS region and Africa.
Sintek is a company specializing in the cement industry, but it also carries out important works in different fields. What are the service areas of the company?
We have always chosen an innovative, modern and trustworthy management style in this road that we have started as an engineering company. With these values, we have taken our place as investors not only in the industrial area but also among different sectors where we can create added value. In the tourism sector, we established a luxury villa and yacht rental platform with the “Tatildekirala” (Rent while on vacation) brand and in a short period of 2 years, we carried our “Tatildekirala” brand to market leadership. At the same time, as a subsidiary of our company, we established Sintek Lojistik and started to serve our employers in both project transportation and land, air and sea transportation. In addition to being a company specialized in the cement industry, we established Sintek Heavy Industry (SintekHI) with Hüseyin Özkan, which we know and appreciate very well from the industry in order to be more active in the heavy industry, especially abroad.
We are continuing to work on production facilities that will reduce our country’s dependence on foreign countries and create added value, both at home and abroad. In the coming years, we will be making new investments in the service sector, especially in order to meet the needs of our country, by emphasizing our investor identity more.
As Sintek, you have partnerships and cooperations with important equipment and machinery manufacturers operating abroad. Could you talk about your works in general?
As a Turkish Contractor company that establishes turnkey industrial facilities on 4 continents, our priority is to use Turkish brands and equipment, and we cooperate with foreign companies that can carry our company up in terms of both organization and quality. In addition, project financing in today’s conditions and crediting the investment under suitable conditions is important. For this reason, as Sintek, we cooperate with our O&M partnersas well as internationally proven financial institutions and serve our employers with the EPC + F model.
What are your characteristics that set you apart from your other competitors in the industry?
Rather, the information given by our references about this question will be more acceptable. As a company that has been serving the sector for 16 years, I can wholeheartedly recommend that any inquiries about Sintek performance can be made by calling any of our employers from our country and abroad. Perhaps this is the biggest comfort that sets us apart from our competitors. No firm, including us, is perfect. Sintek makes the best effort to provide near-perfect service, and while doing this, it takes on the principle of transparency and honesty.
Can we get your general opinions and thoughts about the Turkish cement industry? What kind of steps do you need to take in order for us to be in a better position in the world?
As known, the Turkish cement industry is the first producer in Europe in terms of capacity. This position is valid not only for production capacity but also for trained personnel capacity. For this reason, I believe that this knowledge should be opened abroad and should have more say in the international market. As the cement consumption of our country has reached the saturation level, it can both have more say in the international market and overcome the domestic bottleneck by obtaining income from abroad, especially with the new investments to be made in Africa and Latin America.
How recent developments and the Covid-19 outbreak affected the industry? What are your predictions for the coming period?
The biggest damage Covid-19 epidemic caused to the business world is the uncertainty it creates and the economic environment arising from this uncertainty. The industrial sector is a sector that walks and survives with long-term planning. Unfortunately, although the Covid-19 outbreak gives clues about possible troubles, it remains unclear how long this distress will last and what troubles it will leave behind. This uncertainty environment negatively affects both new investments and existing management parameters and the dose of measures to be taken is not clearly understood in my opinion. I think that with the end of the pandemic declaration worldwide, markets and economic data will become predictable and will return to normal with new habits over time.
What are your goals and strategies for the coming period as a company?
As a company, we want to become a brand in the cement and heavy industry sectors which we belong to and create a tradition that will represent us both in terms of education and firm stances that will continue from generation to generation. For this reason, we attach importance to education, and we invest in young engineers whom we are raising from the beginning and who adhere to their country and ethical values. Thus, we think that we can increase the success we have achieved both at home and abroad.