Fiat Auto's Turkish based joint venture company Tofaş, which has recently grown into one of their biggest global production operations, has been handed an additional important new duty, which reconfirms its strategic place in Fiat's forward planning and development: Tofaş has just been given overall responsibility for the markets in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

This is a major step forward for Tofaş (Turk Otomobil Fabrikasi) which is jointly owned by Fiat Auto and the leading Turkish national conglomerate, Koç Holdings. 51-year-old Ali Pandır, who was appointed as CEO of Tofaş last November to replace Alfredo Altavilla who took over as CEO of Fiat Powertrain Technologies (FPT) announced the new development, saying: "Fiat has divided its allocated regions' world geography into three. Tofaş will be responsible for the markets in Northern Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe."

Meanwhile the influential Turkish Daily News newspaper has reported that during 2007 and 2008 Tofaş plans to invest a figure of US$1 billion to expand its production capacity by 122 percent and to boost exports by 90 percent; a clear signal that the Turkish firm is at the crux of Fiat's forward planning strategies. Tofaş currently builds the Doblò light commercial van range, and its people-carrying derivatives, for global export, introducing a facelifted version last year - which won the prestigious European "Van of the Year" honour; while last week a new "Malibu" badged leisure market targeted version of the new van arrived on the European markets.

Turkey is rapidly becoming a favoured manufacturing base for the world's biggest carmakers. Earlier this month Renault announced it will start building the latest version of its B-segment Clio in the country later on this year, and will invest US$236 million in an increased Research & Development programme. Toyota and Honda both have their own subsidiaries in Turkey, with the latter recently announcing that it will boost production from 30,000 to 100,000 vehicles per year.
 

While the two Japanese firms have their own wholly owned operations, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Ford, Hyundai and Isuzu, are all present in the country, and like Fiat, they operate in conjunction with national joint venture partners. Despite the flood of new Eastern European car factories over the last decade, Turkey still has a higher automotive production output than any single Eastern European state, the automotive industry contributing US$14 billion annually to the Turkish economy, and is nurtured by the government who offer incentives while keeping to European Union standards.

Major upcoming projects for Tofaş include the new C-segment Fiat Linea sedan which was mostly developed in Turkey, the first major project for Fiat it has handled by itself, with Turinese engineering input; and the forthcoming light commercial van, codename "Minicargo", which was is being realised by Tofaş with PSA Peugeot-Citroën as a major partner.

Tofaş in fact started life in 1968, the dream of Vehbi Koç, and its first car it built was the Fiat 124, known locally as the Tofass Murat 124, which left the production lines three years later. Tofaş also successfully assembled the Fiat 131, Tipo, Tempra and Uno models, as well as its own home-developed cars; and today it manufacturers the Fiat Palio, Albea and Marea for both domestic and export applications; while the former two models are also exported in CKD form. Tofaş can count on much experience in selling cars in North Africa, a factor that has contributed to its newly defined role within Fiat Auto; its self-developed "bird" named model range has been exported to the continent for many years, with Egypt being the primary focus of exports.