ALPET becomes market leader in Albania
by Mimoza A on 12/01/09 at 7:06 pm
ALPET becomes market leader in Albania
Turkey’s Altınbaş Oil & Trade Corp. (ALPET) became the biggest oil company in Albania in 2008 with a 30 percent market share in the country.
ALPET, which started operating in Albania in January 2005, was announced as the company of the year in 2007 in a consumer poll and its general manager, İbrahim Aktoz, was chosen as businessman of the year in the same poll.
In an exclusive interview with the Anatolia news agency on Monday, Aktoz said ALPET had chosen Albania because relations between Turkey and Albania have roots dating back 500 years, as well as for its geographical location. Albania is a door through which Balkan states can open up to the world via the Adriatic Sea, along which it has 450 kilometers of coastline, the longest stretch in the Balkans, he explained.
Aktoz said ALPET had filling stations in 24 of Albania’s 28 provinces, with a total of 100 stations throughout the country. “ALPET is eager to become a Balkan energy company based in Albania,” he said, adding that all 510 staff members employed at their gas stations in the country are Albanian. Aktoz said his company has chosen Albania as its base for expanding into the rest of the region. “We will enter other Balkan markets in 2009, and the first place we want to step into is Kosovo, because it was the Kosovars who knocked on our door and asked us to come and invest in their country, and we accepted gladly,” he explained. With 50 million euros in annual turnover, ALPET was the seventh largest company in Albania in 2007.
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