Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Y?ld?r?m said October 16th that the government was planning to launch tenders for four marinas soon, which would raise the total berth capacity for yachts to 19,000 in Turkey.

Binali Y?ld?r?m said:

"Four marinas will be built in Bal?kesir, Tekirda?, ?zmir and Istanbul that will have a 1,525 berth capacity in total. There arecurrently 43 public and private marinas in the country, but this number would increase to 47 with the new ones."

Y?ld?r?m said the new marinas will be built with the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, he said, adding that eight marinas in Mu?la, Ayd?n, ?zmir, Yalova, Mersin and Antalya had already come into operation with this method and five marinas were still under construction in Antalya, Mersin and Mu?la.

Bidders will be able to obtain the tender documents for the new marinas from October 28th.

Recently, two big tenders for ports in Istanbul were held. Do?u? Holding placed the highest offer for the privatization of the Istanbul Sal?pazar? Port Area in May with a $702 million bid, winning the right to operate the port area for 30 years.

The Sembol-Ekopark ?n?aat-Fine Otelcilik joint venture - owned by Rixos Hotels chain - submitted the highest offer in the auction for the privatization of the shipyards in Istanbul's Golden Horn (Haliç), following the BOT model.