Charter market: Is Turkey forcing charter yachts under the Turkish flag?

**UPDATE: As two participants in the meeting agree, the Ministry of Tourism has now decided to postpone the flagging out until 2020 after all.

After the badly shaken charter industry in Turkey was just on the road to recovery and the first fleet operators opened new bases, a new blow is looming. As confirmed by various charter company owners, the Ministry of Tourism is currently considering only issuing charter licences to yachts flying the Turkish flag at the start of the season.

As the fleets' existing licences expire on 31 March, this puts the fleet operators under considerable pressure. They would have to reflag all ships before the first bookings in April - a step that is unlikely to please many European owners.

Yachts under all foreign flags were previously taxed differently in Turkey than local yachts: owners who placed their German-flagged vessel in a charter fleet had to purchase an annual charter licence, which was used to pay the tax per berth. There was a fixed rate of 250 US dollars per existing berth, regardless of how many weeks the ship was in charter. An attractive model with good capacity utilisation.

Two European fleet operators, who did not wish to be named, confirmed to YACHT that such a change is under discussion and that they are preparing to reflag their own yachts at short notice. One managing director also complained that it would be difficult in future to sell German owners a yacht in the charter model in Turkey if it then had to be placed under the Turkish flag. This is because the owner's vessel would then fall completely under Turkish legislation. As there have been repeated reports of cases in which Turkish companies whose owners did not conform to the government's course were virtually expropriated, the question arises as to what happens to ships flying the national flag in such cases.

However, a meeting was held yesterday afternoon between the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and representatives of the charter industry, in which the industry expressed its concerns. Firstly, the withdrawal of foreign yachts from the fleets and marinas is threatening, and the industry would lose many charter weeks and the shipyards service and repair orders. However, as the customers bring a lot of money into the region via transfers, restaurants, markets, flights and so on, such a sudden change in current practice would be counterproductive for Turkey, which is already suffering economically.