The Turkish pharmaceutical market has a great volume due to the country's population of about 65 million. This means that the market is a huge and promising one for international companies who intend to enter into joint ventures and other forms of mutually beneficial cooperation with their Turkish counterparts. Turkish soap and detergent industry has shown very good performance in terms of quality and capacity. There are many companies in soap and detergent industry, about 15 of them being the major ones, among these there are multinational groups which enjoy worldwide reputation. Parallel to the developments in construction, automotive and marine industries of Turkey, paints and coatings industry has also developed and has became one of the most dynamic sectors of the Turkish chemical industry.
Turkey has the largest soda factory in the Middle East.
In addition to light and dense soda ash, refined sodium bicarbonate and sodium silicate are produced at the Mersin plant. Being among the top five countries supplying chrome ore to the world markets, Turkey produces and exports some of the most important chrome chemicals, such as sodium bichromate and basic chrome sulfate. In conjunction with recent industrial growth in Turkey, the consumption and production of many other chemicals are growing rapidly and the number of chemicals produced is increasing every year. The recent developments in textile and leather chemicals are also worth mentioning and many small and medium size companies has recently started to operate in these two sectors. In the Turkish chemical industry, there are about 160 companies with foreign investment.