NEWS New Block Excemption Regulation expected to be issued before year-end In order to be in line with the regulations already in force in EC countries, the new Block Excemption Regulation is now under preparetion. It aims to loosen the existing limits preventing free competition on the trade of motor vehicles and aftermarket services. From aftermarket point of view, some major changes compared to previous conditions are as follows. The distributors of main brands will provide technical documentations, trainings and special tools / diognastic devices to independent workshops too, at the same conditions they apply to their authorized workshops As long as comparable quality, both authorized and independent workshops will be able to purchase spare parts direct from other spare parts sellers and manufacturers The main distributors can force the workshops to use the spares they sold, in the case of warranty repairs and call campaigns which actually reinbursed by them Spare parts supply from parts manufacturers and parts sellers as well as from authorized workshops of main distributors to indepentent workshops will be entirely free Turkish Commercial Vehicle Market. January ? Agust 2005 For January ? Agust 2005, the market volume of ( 6 tons + ) commercial vehicle market in Turkey has been 23 700 trucks. It represents 2% increase compared to 23 225 units at the same period of last year. Already 12 players take place in the market of (6 tons +) including 7 major European, 2 Japanese and 3 local Turkish brands. Among those, Scania. Volvo, Renault and Daf act as importer only whereas Mercedes, Man and Iveco offer both imported products and the vehicles from their local manufacturing/assembly operations. BMC, Ford-Otosan, Askam, Isuzu and Mitsubishi offer their local products only.