13 History · Tarih
Fifty-four years
One chartered coaster carrying Mersin citrus to Beirut, and what happened after that. The bad years are in the list too.
Ali Rıza Tanrıöver charters the 1,240-dwt Karayel and carries Mersin citrus to Beirut and Alexandria. One ship, two ports, no office — the paperwork is done at a table in the Kahve on Uray Caddesi.
First owned vessel, the Poyraz. The company takes an office on İsmet İnönü Bulvarı, two rooms above a chandler.
First container. Nobody in Mersin will handle it, so KERTE buys a second-hand crane truck and lifts it themselves.
The Mersin Free Zone opens. KERTE takes 4,000 m² of it and starts consolidating groupage.
Road division founded to feed the ships from Gaziantep and Adana. Eleven tractors.
The lira devalues. Two vessels are sold to stay solvent; nobody is laid off. It is the year the company still measures itself against.
First office outside Türkiye, in Beirut — 3 kerte from Mersin, and the first port the company ever sailed to.
Rail: the first block train to Tehran.
Bonded warehousing reaches 60,000 m². Customs brokerage brought in-house.
KERTE MERSİN delivered from Tuzla: 260 m, 4,520 TEU, the largest ship the company has owned.
The Middle Corridor service to Tashkent opens, a month after the first block train runs empty as a proving trip.
Shore power at the Mersin berth. The main engines stop at the quay for the first time.
Forty-six offices in twenty-seven countries. 412,000 TEU moved in the year.
2001.
The lira lost half its value in a fortnight. Freight was contracted in dollars and the bank debt was in dollars; the cargo was Turkish and the customers paid in lira. Two vessels were sold at the bottom of the market to a Greek owner who knew exactly what position we were in.
Nobody was laid off. It cost the family the second ship and most of a decade, and it is the year the company still measures itself against when someone proposes taking on debt.
