Maritime & Ports

In Ottoman times most of the shipping between Turkish coasts was in the hands of foreign companies. The Republic treated this as a matter of sovereignty.

Key Steps

• İzmir Economic Congress (1923). The congress took the first decisions towards founding a national merchant fleet and exercising cabotage rights.
• Cabotage Law (1926). Law No. 815 was adopted on 19 April 1926 and came into force on 1 July 1926; passenger and cargo transport between Turkish ports was reserved for Turkish-flag vessels.
• Gölcük Shipyard (1926). At the yard, built after draining marshland in the area, the damaged battlecruiser Yavuz was repaired in 1927.
• Ship orders. Vessels were ordered from abroad, chiefly Germany, to grow the merchant fleet.
• İzmir Quay Company and Tramway Operation. The foreign-owned company that held the concession for İzmir's quays and cargo handling passed into state ownership under the Denizbank law (1937).
• Istanbul Quay, Dock and Warehouse Co. Istanbul's main cargo-handling and storage facility was nationalised and brought into the state maritime infrastructure.
• Ereğli Company. The mixed concession company, which held the port and operation of Ereğli, the Zonguldak–Çatalağzı railway line and coal-mining operations, was nationalised because of its strategic importance for both energy and transport.
• Denizbank (27 December 1937). Law No. 3295 created it to bring state maritime bodies such as Denizyolları, AKAY, port operations and pilotage under one roof. It operated for only about a year and a half and was abolished by Law No. 3633 in 1939, its functions passing to the General Directorates of State Maritime Lines and State Ports.
• TCG Saldıray and Atılay (1939). These two submarines were among the first modern submarines of the Republican Navy. Saldıray was built at the Germaniawerft yard in Kiel (keel laid 10 February 1937) and joined the fleet at a ceremony on the Golden Horn on 5 June 1939. Atılay was built at the Taşkızak yard in Istanbul and launched on 19 May 1939; sources differ on her commissioning date. Atılay was lost to a mine on 14 July 1942.

Although Denizbank was short-lived, the arrangements as a whole formed the institutional basis of today's Turkish merchant fleet and state shipyards.