Today’s Zaman reported that the Turkish government plans to continue value added tax exemptions for two more years on products manufactured solely for export as part of the inward processing regime, a program to help develop sections of the economy.

Four sectors, namely the automotive sector, automotive supply and spare parts manufacturing sector, the iron and steel sector and the textile sector will benefit from a 2 year extension of tax exemptions that ended on December 31st 2008.

It will also encourage company mergers and acquisitions as a measure to stave off the effects of the global economic crisis. According to sources close to the finance ministry, it is expected that small and medium sized enterprises that merge will be exempt from corporate tax for a period of between 1 and 2 years.

The ministry is also mulling over the introduction of similar tax benefits to licensed warehouse operators, private enterprises that are established to collect and keep agricultural produce for trade, or in other words, to undertake the same job as the State Supply Office but on a more local basis. These warehouse operators will not have to pay corporate tax for 5 years.