The following TCMA members will participate to the CAMX THE COMPOSITES Fair which will be held in Dallas, TX, USA between 16-18 October 2018;

AKPA Organic Peroxide Chemistry Industry. – EE40
DOWAKSA Carbon Fiber – L55
METYX Composites – K37 stands.

Kordsa Acquires Fabric Development Inc and Textile Products Inc in the US

Reinforcement technologies’ leader Kordsa, after expanding its lines of business to composite technologies in 2016, acquired Fabric Development Inc (FDI) and Textile Products Inc. (TPI), which provide advanced composite materials to the commercial aviation industry, with an investment of approximately USD 100 million. With these acquisitions Kordsa aims to follow the same path that led to leadership in tire reinforcement technologies to build a 2^nd Kordsa in composite technologies as well.

Kordsa continues its organic growth with R&D and technology investments while seeking for inorganic growth opportunities in composite business globally. Recently, Kordsa announced the acquisition of Fabric Development Inc. (FDI) and Textile Products Inc. (TPI), which provide advanced composite materials to the commercial aviation industry, with an investment of USD 100 million. Kordsa sees this opportunity as a very important step towards reinforcing its composite market position in the US as well as becoming a strong player in the growing aviation industry supply chain.

Kordsa CEO Ali Çalışkan said: “Primarily producing only tire reinforcement technologies, as Kordsa, we used to reinforce every one out of three automobile tires and every two out of three aircraft tires. Over the years, we leveraged our expertise in tire reinforcement technologies into construction reinforcement and composite technologies and expanded our lines of business. As Kordsa, we touch every corner of daily life and reinforce life. In parallel to our strategic decision to focus in composite technologies, we inaugurated Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, which operates as an innovation hub combining industry and university under the same roof as well as is home to basic research, design R&D and production in 2016. Our business journey today is brought to a new level with this brand-new investment which will lead us to become a global player in the field of commercial aviation having an important presence in the commercial aviation value chain. This new step will ensure us to be a strategic supplier of key players in aerospace and civil aviation, particularly Boeing and Toray Composites Materials America Inc. With this acquisition, we also aim to strengthen our strong global leadership in reinforcement technologies. We used to reinforce the tires of the aircrafts, now we are honored to say that we will also reinforce the wings and hulls of the aircrafts with our composite technologies, as well as the landing tracks of those aircrafts with our construction reinforcement technologies. Kordsa, now operating in 10 facilities throughout 4 continents, will continue to reinforce life and take firm steps forward.”

About Kordsa

Kordsa is the global player of tire, construction reinforcement and composites technologies market. As the worldwide leader of the tire reinforcement technologies market, it carries out production through a vast area from USA to Asia Pacific and supplies its reinforcement technologies to the whole world. With its business processes all based on R&D and innovation, Kordsa has 715 patent applications world-wide.

The announcement by Koloğlu Group, the member of our Association, about thepartnership of “Hengshi Fiberglass and Koloğlu Group”, leading to a decision for investment in Turkey for manufacturing fibers for the composites industry, is provided below.

WE WOULD LIKE TO ANNOUNCE TO THE PUBLIC OUR DECISION TO INVEST IN TURKEY FOR MANUFACTURING OF FABRIC FOR THE COMPOSITES INDUSTRY, THROUGH A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN “HENGSHI FIBERGLASS and KOLOĞLU GROUP”.

As the leading supplier for wind power producers worldwide, China Hengshi Foundation Co. Ltd. is delighted to announce the commencement of work for the opening up of our third manufacturing plant worldwide in Izmir, in partnership with Koloğlu Group, following our existing plants in the People’s Republic of China and Egypt. The progress and potential Turkey exhibits in the composites industry, with special reference to wind power, automotive, defense industry and marine applications, were the leading factors guiding us towards the investment decision. Soon, we will be providing you further details about all the products and services we will offer for the composites industry. We hope this will be beneficial for Turkish composites industry in general, and our firm in particular.
Yours respectfully,
Koloğlu Group

Kordsa’s composite manufacturing facility certified for quality and risk management in aerospace and defense industry

Reinforcement technologies’ leader Kordsa’s manufacturing facility at Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, a technology hub inaugurated in cooperation with Sabancı University to bring together industry and university under the same roof, received BS EN ISO 9001:2015 ve EN 9100:2016 (AS9100D) certification, which is an international standard for quality and risk management in aerospace and defense industry.

Sabancı Holding affiliate Kordsa’s manufacturing facility at Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, which is a home to basic research, applied research, technology development, product development, entrepreneurship as well as production processes in composites technologies, received BS EN ISO 9001:2015 and EN 9100:2016 (AS9100D) certificates, which approve its compliance with Aerospace and Defense Industry Quality and Risk Management Standards. This certificate, confirming Kordsa's commitment to high quality service to domestic and global customers in the aerospace and defense industries, will be a major advantage in realizing the company’s targets in the aerospace industry.

About Kordsa
Kordsa is the global player of tire, construction reinforcement and composites technologies market. As the worldwide leader of the tire reinforcement technologies market, it carries out production through a vast area from USA to Asia Pacific and supplies its reinforcement technologies to the whole world. With its business processes all based on R&D and innovation, Kordsa has 692 patent applications world-wide.

METYX Group has completed an agreement with the Gaston County Economic Development Commission
in North Carolina to acquire a manufacturing facility for its new METYX USA Technical Textiles Division.
An initial investment to purchase and upgrade the existing 30 acre (120 000 sq. m) site and existing
buildings has been finalised, which includes 130,000 sq. ft (~ 12,000 sq. m) of covered space. The site is
located in Ranlo, Gaston County, a town approximately 28 miles west of Charlotte city. Production is
expected to start by the end of Q3 2018. Significant support and incentive programs are being provided at
both county and state levels which, combined with the ideal location, have made this a highly attractive
package for the group and helped to secure the deal.

The planned new METYX US operations in North Carolina, expected to employ up to 200 people, will
initially focus on setting up technical textiles production lines for manufacturing a range of glass and
carbon fabrics, along with sales, customer service and warehousing facilities to serve the North American
composites market. As a next phase, in line with customer needs, fabric, core and vacuum consumable kit
cutting capabilities will be added in the future. METYX is primarily looking to establish business with US
and Canadian OEMs and tier 1 converters in the wind energy generation, marine, road and rail
transportation and industrial sectors.

METYX Group Managing partner, Uğur Üstünel stated: “Having been interested for several years, we
believe now is the right time to invest and bring our portfolio of products and services to the North
American market. The US is a very attractive market, being the biggest globally in several key industry
sectors with good future growth prospects. Without doubt, it is a fiercely competitive region, but we believe
that our passionate customer service culture and solutions offering approach, combined with our strong
product and service offering gives us a unique selling proposition that will attract new business. This is a
very exciting time for METYX and we look forward to starting our US operations later this year.”

Üstünel will head up METYX USA working alongside newly appointed advisory board team members
Christian Kissinger, Evren Aykol and Stefan Kanburoglu, who will play a key role in getting METYX USA
up and running in the coming months. They will also provide considerable local knowledge and business
networking as all three are based in North Carolina, living nearby in Charlotte city, so commutable to the
new location in Ranlo.

North Carolina is an established manufacturing location in the USA, with more than 75,000 people working
in plastics and chemicals manufacturing, being home to leading multinationals including DowDupont and
BASF. The state also has a long history of textile manufacturing, with around 700 companies, including
competitors. Manufacturers in a number of target market sectors for METYX technical textile products are
also in the region. In more recent years, North Carolina has seen significant growth in the renewable
energy companies, particularly wind turbine generator manufacturing, as well as a growing number of
automotive, truck and heavy machinery manufacturing companies.

Our Association has successfully carried out the JEC WORLD 2018 Paris Fair with the participation of a total of 31 Turkish companies including 12 companies within the scope of the cooperation with the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) this year under National Participation Organization and 19 independent exhibitors .

Within the framework of the National Participation Organization, Turkish companies have also had the opportunity to welcome their guests and promote their products in a contiguous plane and wider exhibition spaces. The increasing number of Turkish companies participating in the fair every year, which is performed in the excellent organization of ITO, has been an important indicator that Turkish composites and Turkish composite companies have steadily strengthened their place in the World Market. Turkey Composite Industry, which grew even further in 2017, had the chance to show its position once again on international level through the representatives attending the fair. Another indicator of this situation is the intense interest in our magazine and our Sectorial Catalogue in the fair where the 18th edition of “COMPOSITES TURKEY” Sectorial Magazine was distributed, which is the main publication of the Turkish Composite Sector.

THE TURKISH COMPANIES PARTICIPATED IN  JEC WORLD 2017

1)    3D WOVENS – ERGİNER SERAMİK

2)    AĞTEKS LTD.

3)    AKAR MAKİNA

4)    AKPA KİMYA

5)    BORUSAN ARGE

6)    BOYTEK

7)    CAMELYAF

8)    CARBOMID – BİRLİK TİCARET

9)    COATS TÜRKİYE

10)  DEKORSAN TİCARİ ARAÇ VE POLYESTER ÜRÜNLERİ

11)   DOWAKSA

12)   DURATEK

13)   DURFOM

14)   ECE BOYA

15)   FİBERFLON

16)   İBA KİMYA

17)   İSTANBUL TİCARET ODASI

18)   KORDSA

19)   KOSSE KOMPOZİT

20)  LİTERATÜR KİMYA

21)   METYX COMPOSITES

22)   MIR AR-GE

23)   POLİYA 

24)   POLRES POLYESTER

25)   SITEKS

26)   SPINTEKS

27)   SPM KOMPOZİT

28)   STA KOMPOZİT – SÖNMEZ A.S.F.

29)   TEZKOM – ESKİM

30)   T C M A – KOMPOZİT SANAYİCİLERİ DERNEĞİ

31)    TURKUAZ POLYESTER

This year, more than 1300 companies participated in and 42,445 people visited the JEC WORLD Fair, the number one Fair of the Composite Sector, from 115 countries. The Turkish companies taking part in the most crowded composite fair held to date, thus had the opportunity to exhibit their activities all over the world.

JEC WORLD 2018 Fair will take place in Paris between the dates of March 6-8, March, 2018.  

METYX Group has concluded discussions with the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA)
and secured a 50% matched Government funded incentive package to support a multimillion Euro
investment project to expand METYX Hungary Kft. HIPA works closely with the Hungarian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to attract inward investment from overseas companies into Hungary to create new jobs
and build its economy.

The combined investment funds will be used to significantly expand the existing facilities at the
Kaposvár site over the next five years, to increase production capacity for knitting glass and carbon
fibre textiles and to expand its fabric and core kitting service. METYX Hungary has 15,000 sq. m of
covered factory space and 67,000 sq.m open space currently operational, which is only 35% of the
230,000 sq. m former North American Bus Industries (NABI) production site acquired by METYX in
2013, so the site has plenty of space for this planned expansion and further growth in the future.
At a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday 7 th February the formal announcement of this
investment agreement was made by Mr. Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Mr. Attila Gelencsér, Kaposvár’s parliamentary representative in Budapest. During the press
conference, Mr. Uğur Üstünel, Co-Director of METYX Group stated: “We are delighted with this
significant investment support package from the Hungarian Government to help us expand our facilities
and increase staff numbers. We look forward to working closely with HIPA and other Hungarian
government agencies going forward to make our expansion plans a reality. Being located in central
Europe, METYX Hungary is strategically very important to enable us to continue business growth
across the EU market and meet customer demands. Such positive support provided from both local and
central government in Hungary has motivated the METYX board to commit further capital investments
in production technologies and infrastructure at our Kaposvár site.”
Üstünel went on to say: “In May 2015 we started production in Kaposvár with only 15 people. Today,
METYX Hungary employs 155 people and delivers across Europe. The site currently operates four
production lines, with 3 additional lines being installed in 2018. With the new investments, the total
annual capacity at METYX Hungary will increase from 3000 to 8000 tons for technical fabrics alone,
along with an expanded glass and core kit cutting service. We expect the numbers of employees in
Hungary to reach 200 by the end of this year, with additional people needed by the end of 2020. As a
result of this major incentive program, we are committed to making multimillion Euro investments over
the next five years which will secure more than 200 long term jobs in Kaposvár. It is safe to say that
METYX is already ahead of our commitments to the Hungarian government.”
The fabrics and kits manufactured by METYX Hungary are aimed at producers of composite parts used
in major industrial market sectors including: building and construction, boatbuilding, automotive,
transportation and wind energy; the ISO 9001 accredited Kaposvár site has completed intensive supply
chain qualification programs with key wind turbine manufacturers.

PlastEurasia – 27th International Istanbul Plastic Industry Fair held in association with PAGEV (Turkish Plastic Industries, Research, Development and Education Foundation) and TÜYAP welcomed sector professionals from many countries including Far East and Middle East to Europe, Central Asia to Balkans.

PlastEurasia Istanbul 2017 Fair, which opened its doors for the 27th time on 6 December 2017, has become more colorful this year. Our association has also taken a stand in the exhibition where the latest technological products are exhibited from plastics machines to chemicals and raw materials, from machine side industry to heat, control devices and molds.

Mehmet Göçmen, the CEO of Sabancı Holding, has announced that their subsidiary and member of our association Kordsa will be among the suppliers of Boeing. The press release on the subject is below. We congratulate Kordsa Company for their successful work.