Turkey is world’s one of the rapidly-growing economies with its foreign trade capacity exceeding 391 billion USD annually. Turkey’s leading trade partner is Germany with over 21.3 billion USD import and 15.1 billion USD export, followed by other trade partners such as Russia, the United Kingdom, UAE, China, France and the Netherlands.
In 2018 Turkey was visited by over 39 million foreigners of which around 6 million were from Russia, 4.5 million were from Germany and 2.25 million from the United Kingdom.
In proportion to this growth, legal sectors in Turkey such as corporate law, law on direct foreign investments, merger&acquisition, immigration law, construction law, real estate law, maritime law, transportation law and hotel management & finance are steadily developing. New developments and legislation are shaping the Turkish Law in a way that encourages and even favors foreign investments. In 2016 International Labor Law was introduced to regulate foreigners’ work permits in a way that complies with the European standards better. In September 2018 a presidential order was announced to grant Turkish citizenship right to foreigners purchasing real estate worth at least 400,000 USD in Turkey. In March 2019 a new regulation was introduced to have independent and licensed survey companies assess the real estates which foreigners wish to purchase, in order to protect the foreign investors from being overcharged or frauded in other ways.
In the mid of these new developments, Antalya, Turkey’s tourist capital with over 10 million foreign visitors annually, is experiencing a huge boom both in tourism and real estate sectors. Antalya is the flagship of Turkey’s tourism industry and also the fourth most visited city in Europe after London, Paris and Istanbul. While Istanbul’s visitor statistics can be attributed to the fact that it is more of a transit destination for tourists, Antalya is undoubtedly the whole world’s final destination for beach tourism.
This high number of foreign visitors, along with Turkish Lira’s devaluation against the US Dollar, has proved to be a paramount opportunity for investing minds. The figures on real estate purchases by foreigners in Antalya has seen a huge increase in the recent years. Many foreign visitors have decided to turn their annual week-long vacations in Antalya’s hotels into month-long vacations in their own summer houses and executed these investment plans.
All these growing economic activities and boom in foreign visitors have brought along many legal issues varying from real estate law, construction law, criminal law, corporate law and law on foreigners. Foreign clients sought Antalya lawyers to help resolve legal and criminal disputes that arose during their vacations or investments. Finding the right attorney in Antalya is vital for foreign clients both in terms of resolving disputes and overcoming the language barrier.
For questions concerning foreign investments in Turkey and Antalya, starting a business and setting up a company, real estate purchases, work permit and residence permit issues, Turkish citizenship issues, contracts, and all other legal issues and consultancy please consult an Antalya lawyer whom you can trust.
