Ergün makes an offer to Toyota: Sakaria

Nuray Babacan NAGOYA / KYOTO- Hürriyet

Industry Miniuster Nihat Ergün (C), Toyota Vise President Takeshi Uchiyamada (R) and Toyota Turkey Chief Executive Ali Haydar Bozkurt pose in front of a Toyota car. AA photo

Industry Minister Nihat Ergün has called on Toyota to produce a model named “Sakaria” in its Turkey plant, in a reference to the car maker’s facility in the northwestern province.

As part of his visit to Japan, Ergün met with Fujio Cho, the chief executive of Toyota, to promote Turkey’s new incentive system. Toyota Turkey had earlier said that the details of the system on the car industry were not clear enough.

During the meeting Nagoya, where the Toyota headquarters is based, Cho said he needed advise to increase the production in Sakarya from between 80,000 and 90,000 items annually to the full capacity of 180,000. “You can produce a new model under the name of Toyota Sakarya. It is easy to pronounce in Japan. You can even call it Sakaria,” the minister replied to Cho.

Ergün also suggested that Toyota should bring the production of new models to Turkey including commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles and hybrid cars.

Cho said the “Sakaria” brand was an interesting idea. He also said Turkey’s support for environmentally-friendly cars was currently limited to electric cars, but that this should also cover hybrids.