Mr. Hasan Naiboglu, Turkish Undersecretary for Maritime Affairs, opened the SMM Fair in Istanbul on wednesday.

Ship owners from Japan and Germany have a keen interest in Turkey’s maritime industry, representatives of leading shipbuilding companies told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review at a trade fair Wednesday.

Nearly 150 companies from 25 countries, including leading exhibitors from Asia, Europe and numerous Turkish shipyards and maritime suppliers, gathered at the Shipbuilding Machinery and Maritime Technology Trade Fair, or SMM, that started in Istanbul on Wednesday to present their latest products and technological developments in the shipbuilding and the shipyard sectors.

Most of the companies at this year’s fair were from Japan and Germany.

Kenji Narushima, sales manager of Mitsubishi Corporation, told the Daily News that Japanese ship owners are interested in doing business with Turkish ship builders. “I was expecting more exhibitors this year,” said Narushima, adding that at the inaugural event in 2010 there were two floors allocated to exhibitors while displays at the 2011 event all fitted in one floor. “This might be caused by the shrinking in Turkish maritime industry due to global economic crisis,” he said.

“We want to build up relations with the Turkish shipbuilding firms,” Principal Surveyor and Business Department Manager at Japanese firm ClassNK Toshifumi Fujimura told the Daily News.

Zenshichi Akasaka, chairman of Japan Marine Equipment Association, or JSMEA, said he hoped the SMM would be profitable for all the companies participating and for everyone in Turkey’s shipbuilding and related maritime industries.

German firms eye opportunities

Hauke Schlegel, managing director of the German Engineer­ing Federation, or VDMA’s, Marine and Offshore Equipment Group, said he thought the fair in Istanbul was “an important event and an indicator for future development of the shipbuilding industry in Turkey and beyond that for the maritime industry in the whole of the region from the Black Sea to the Middle East.”

Schlegel described Istanbul as a vital link between Europe and Asia for the maritime sector, just as it is in a number of other respects. “That is why so many of the leading German shipbuilding companies will be present at SMM Istanbul,” he said, adding that the German maritime sector is the biggest supplier of high-tech maritime equipment at SMM Istanbul.

Germany’s maritime industry has contributed to Turkey’s shipping and shipbuilding industries, and those of other countries around the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean for many years, according to Schlegel.

The amount of international interest in the fair is a consequence of the Turkish shipbuilding industry’s upward momentum in recent years and Turkeys vicinity to numerous emerging markets in the Middle East, said Ebru Goca, director of Goca Exhibitions, organized 2011’s fair along with Hamburg Messe, one of the world’s leading shipbuilding companies.