Türkiye has 115 technology development zones, 97 operating

Türkiye had 115 designated technology development zones by September 2026, with 97 operating and infrastructure work continuing at 18 others, according to a 25 October Anadolu Agency report compiled from Ministry of Industry and Technology data. The zones are intended to connect industrial companies with researchers and universities and help commercialize technical knowledge, develop products and production methods, and improve manufacturing quality and productivity.

The ministry figures put the number of firms in the zones at 13,673 and their combined staff at 135,321. Of the firms, 595 were foreign-owned or had foreign partners, 3,815 were incubator businesses and 2,389 had academic partners. These are distinct reported classifications; the article does not say that they are mutually exclusive categories.

The zones had completed 78,859 projects, with work continuing on another 19,990. Their companies reported total sales of TRY 1.85 trillion and exports of $20.86 billion. Those two monetary indicators use separate currencies and should not be added or directly compared without a conversion method. The report does not specify the precise accounting period for cumulative sales or exports in the text.

Innovation indicators included 2,618 registered patents and 6,241 patent applications still being processed. Firms had also registered 660 utility models and 565 industrial designs; 437 utility-model and 225 industrial-design applications remained in process. Applications are not granted rights, and the source does not say how many applications will be approved.

The report also covered research and development centres outside the technology-zone count. It listed 1,365 such centres as of September, with 80,442 completed projects and 15,866 in progress. Registered patents stood at 17,521 and applications at 31,277; 237 centres were foreign-owned or had foreign partners. Design centres were separately reported at 349, employing 8,464 people, with 17,052 projects completed and 2,284 underway.

The figures offer a snapshot of the scale of Türkiye’s technology-support infrastructure, but not an evaluation of its economic additionality. The AA article compiles ministry statistics; it provides no year-on-year comparison, sector split, company-level productivity, research spending, private funding share or counterfactual showing what activity would have occurred without zone status. Sales and export totals therefore describe activity associated with the zones, not the amount caused by the program.