Kayseri - Economy

Economy

Kayseri received notable public investments in the 1920s and 1930s. Sumer Textile and Kayseri Tayyare Fabrikasi (airplane manufacturer) were set up here during the post Republican Era with the help of German and particularly Russian experts. The latter manufactured the first aircraft "made in Turkey" in the 1940s. After the 1950s, the city suffered from a decrease in the amount of public investment. It was, however, during the same years that Kayseri businessmen and merchants became transformed into countrywide capitalists. Families such as Sabancı, Has, Dedeman, Hattat, Kurmel, Özyeğin, Karamanlargil and Ozilhan who started out as small-scale merchants in the city of Kayseri became prominent actors in the Turkish economy. These families set up their headquarters in cities such as Istanbul and Adana, nevertheless often coming back to Kayseri to invest.

Thanks to the economic liberalization policies introduced in the 1980s, a new wave of merchants and industrialists from Kayseri joined their predecessors. Most of these new industrialists choose Kayseri as base of their operations. As a consequence of better infrastructures, the city achieved a remarkable industrial growth since 2000 and is one of the key cities that characterizes the class of Anatolian Tigers, with a favorable environment present especially for small and medium enterprises. Some social scientists trace this economic success to a modernist Islamic outlook referred to as "Islamic Calvinism" which they say is taking root in Kayseri.