Speaking at a conference yesterday in Istanbul Alvarez said that the British communications giant will double its investment in Turkey in order to meet these goals, which include projects as ambitious as connecting Istanbul with the region as far as South Africa with a loop of underwater network cables over the next 12 months. He also spoke of plans to launch 10 new products in Turkey across 21 cities and backed up by 6000 ethernet services.

To do this 400 new employees and 50 consultants will be hired, Alvarez said that the new employees will be IT experts who also have sector-specific expertise. For example, BT is partnering with Novartis Turkey for a pharma cloud project and also provides network services for traders in the financial services sector.

“Our strategy in Turkey consists of three parts and these are: more networks, more products and more people,” he said.

BT is keen to invest more in Turkey because of the country’s strong economic growth, dynamic population, strong IT base and the fact that the country is becoming a hub for many international businesses said the charismatic European President, adding:

“Turkish companies like Arçelik are becoming multinationals and our customers are also investing here. As international companies and domestic companies are investing in Turkey’s telecommunications sector, we see a 1.5 billion pound market and we want to tap into that.”

A Turkish Airlines A330

Turkish airlines finished 2011 with a big array of new flight routes, and has started 2012 in the same way. At the back end of last year Turkish airlines made the headlines for being quick to resume flights into Libya as soon as the infrastructure allowed it in September, it also launched a wide-array of flights into Iraq as it becomes safer as well, including new flights to Dammamm and Mosul.

This year it has kept up with the newly emerging destinations, announcing this month a new flight to Somalia’s Mogadishu to fly twice weekly via Khartoum. The flights are to depart on Tuesday and Thursday Istanbul Atatürk Airport, and return from Mogadishu on Wednesday and Friday.

Also this month the airline announced widening coverage of its New York route, with a third daily flight being added from Istanbul into New York’s Kennedy airport from 28 May to Sep 16. The additional flights will be serviced with Airbus 330-300 and Boeing 777 aircraft. With this the Turkish airline will offer the largest coverage of the Istanbul – New York route, with both more flights and more seats than anyone else.

What’s more, anyone flying Turkish airlines will not benefit from free usage of high speed internet capabilities, which has been rolled out across all flights.

Turkish Airlines Starts Year with More New Flights

Turkish airlines finished 2011 with a big array of new flight routes, and has started 2012 in the same way. At the back end of last year Turkish airlines made the headlines for being quick to resume flights into Libya as soon as the infrastructure allowed it in September, it also launched a wide-array of flights into Iraq as it becomes safer as well, including new flights to Dammamm and Mosul.

This year it has kept up with the newly emerging destinations, announcing this month a new flight to Somalia’s Mogadishu to fly twice weekly via Khartoum. The flights are to depart on Tuesday and Thursday Istanbul Atatürk Airport, and return from Mogadishu on Wednesday and Friday.

Also this month the airline announced widening coverage of its New York route, with a third daily flight being added from Istanbul into New York’s Kennedy airport from 28 May to Sep 16. The additional flights will be serviced with Airbus 330-300 and Boeing 777 aircraft. With this the Turkish airline will offer the largest coverage of the Istanbul – New York route, with both more flights and more seats than anyone else.

What’s more, anyone flying Turkish airlines will not benefit from free usage of high speed internet capabilities, which has been rolled out across all flights.

This type of event really shows the world just how vast and varied Turkey’s climatic conditions are, and highlights Turkey’s potential as a ski destination. We all know the sun, sea and sand Turkey, but comparatively few people are aware that it has some of the world’s best ski resorts offering great skiing conditions for half of the year, and at half of the cost of the Alps. People are especially surprised to learn about towns like Antalya, which, for a few weeks of the year allow people to enjoy snow-boarding in the morning and beach-basking in the afternoon.

In fact, Turkey’s ski resorts are so virgin that you can’t really buy property in them yet, as there just isn’t sufficient appetite to warrant marketing or building such properties. It can only be hoped that such shock snowfalls in eastern Turkey can draw sufficient attention to Turkey’s colder face.