Logistics company opens new location in Mersin on the eastern Mediterranean Sea / Turkey becomes more important for rail transports on the New Silk Road between Asia and Europe

Mersin / Lauterach, March 28, 2022. With a new location in Mersin, the transport and logistics service provider Gebrüder Weiss has expanded its network in the south of Turkey. The activities carried out from the country’s second-largest port include air and sea freight services, as well as intermodal land transport. Mersin is a central logistics hub on the Mediterranean Sea for shipments to the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

“Turkey is an emerging growth market and, with its location on the Mediterranean Sea, an important freight handling facility for transports between Asia and Europe. Mersin represents another region being developed by us for our customers, following on from Istanbul and Izmir. Favorable transport connections to the Mediterranean region as well as the proximity to industrial operations in the hinterland are all advantages offered by the new location,” says Wolfram Senger-Weiss, CEO of Gebrüder Weiss. Mersin is connected to the northern economic centers of Kahramanmaras, Konya and Kayseri, from which mainly textile and agricultural products, chemical industry and mechanical engineering are exported. “The key factor is the location’s immediate proximity to producers. In addition to air and sea freight services, we also offer local customers pharmaceutical and multimodal transports as well as warehouse logistics and customs clearance,” adds Çiler Keskinel, Country Manager Air & Sea Turkey at Gebrüder Weiss.

Turkey becomes more important as a Silk Road hub

The Country also serves an important gateway function on the so-called “Middle Corridor” of the New Silk Road towards Central Asia and China. This offers an alternative to the transports via the Northern Corridor through Russia, running from Turkey (Istanbul), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan to China. “We have our own locations in most of the countries along the Middle Corridor and are familiar with the local legal and cultural particulars in these regions. We are also seeing increased demand from our customers for shipments on this route,” says Senger-Weiss. The transit time is currently between 35 and 45 days, as the route also crosses the Caspian Sea.

Mersin is the third Gebrüder Weiss location in Turkey, in addition to Istanbul and Izmir, where the company has been organizing partial-load transports along with air and sea freight services with 75 employees since 2012. By taking over the freight forwarder 3S Transport & Logistik last year, Gebrüder Weiss also further expanded its transports from Istanbul to Germany.