Sümerbank was a Turkish bank and industrial

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

established in 1933 and originally owned by the Turkish state, now part of

Oyak Bank ING is the Turkish subsidiary of the ING Group, an international banking company. The bank was formerly known as Oyak Bank which became part of ING Group in December 2007. It provides retail and commercial banking services to individuals and busine ...

. On 11 January 2002,

acquired Sümerbank and the combined bank is now known under the Oyak Bank name.

History

Atatürk Nazilli Basma Fabrikası'nın açılışında (1937)

Sümerbank Textile Factory was established in 1933 as a state owned bank for funding the construction of textile factories and the development of the

textile industry The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry. Industry process Cotton manufacturi ...

in Turkey. A year earlier, in 1932, President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Prime Minister

İsmet İnönü Mustafa İsmet İnönü (; 24 September 1884 – 25 December 1973) was a Turkish army officer and statesman of Kurdish descent, who served as the second President of Turkey from 11 November 1938 to 22 May 1950, and its Prime Minister three tim ...

had secured a foreign credit loan worth 8.5 million

Turkish lira The lira ( tr, Türk lirası; sign: ₺; ISO 4217 code: TRY; abbreviation: TL) is the official currency of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. One lira is divided into one hundred ''kuruş''. History Ottoman lira (1844–1923) The lira, along with ...

s from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

(which offered the lowest

interest rate An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, ...

s to Turkey in that period) for the construction of Sümerbank's first textile factory in Kayseri. The first textile production plant in Kayseri was opened in September 1935. The Soviet Union also provided credit loans and technical assistance for Turkey's ''First Five-Year Industrial Plan'' ('' Birinci Beş Yıllık Sanayi Planı'', 1934–1938) which was partially influenced by the First Five-Year Economic Plan (1928–1932) of the Soviet Union. Economists and planning experts from the Soviet Union and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

were invited to Turkey and prepared reports on how the country should use its natural resources efficiently for industrialization, and how to optimally distribute the factories and industrial plants across the country's geographical regions.Alkan Soyak: "Türkiye'de İktisadi Planlama: DPT'ye İhtiyaç var mı?", Doğuş Üniversitesi Dergisi, 4 (2) 2003, p. 172
/ref> Sümerbank's textile plants produced the highest quality textiles in Turkey during the early decades of the republic, for relatively cheap prices, which enabled the citizens with low levels of income to afford decent clothing. After 11 years of consecutive wars between 1911 and 1922, namely the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...

(1911–1912), Balkan Wars (1912–1913),

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

(1914–1918) and the

Turkish War of Independence The Turkish War of Independence "War of Liberation", also known figuratively as ''İstiklâl Harbi'' "Independence War" or ''Millî Mücadele'' "National Struggle" (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns waged by th ...

(1919–1923), the Turkish economy was devastated and many Turks were poor. Starting from 1929, the global Great Depression, which lasted until the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in 1945, also badly hit the rapidly growing (since 1923) but still weak and fragile Turkish economy. Due to the lack of a strong

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

in Turkey in those years, large scale investments by the government were necessary for initiating the industrialization efforts in the country. Sümerbank was the cornerstone of Atatürk's industrial revolution in Turkey. Sümerbank's factories and plants, which represented the state-led industrialization in the Turkish textile sector for decades, were gradually closed and sold starting from 2002, when Oyak Bank acquired Sümerbank and decided to terminate the company's operations in this field, due to the highly developed private sector and saturated market in the Turkish textile industry by the early 2000s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumerbank Defunct banks of Turkey Banks disestablished in 2002 Banks established in 1933 2002 disestablishments in Turkey Manufacturing companies established in 1933 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2002 Government-owned companies of Turkey Turkish companies established in 1933

History

See also

References