Founded over a century ago and with over 60 years of experience in international transportation, the Arkas group of companies underwent a comprehensive restructuring process, the result of which was the formation of Arkas Holding in September 2000.

Encompassing 52 companies and over 6000 employees, Arkas Holding offers a wide range of services from international container shipping to port operations.

Arkas Holding is an organization committed to safely delivering the goods with which it has been entrusted by its customers to the indicated destination. Quality and customer satisfaction are its top priority and it has become a leader in the sector with its emphasis on state-of-the-art technology and continuous innovation.

Arkas grew 20% in 2010
Arkas, which is the powerhouse of the Turkish shipping sector, continued to realize a number of firsts at home in 2010, and carried on with its restructuring in the Mediterranean and Black Sea foreign offices. It closed out the year with growth of 20%. Arkas also made important investments in 2010. Arkas initiated the first regular cabotage shipments with containers in Turkey, as well as opening new offices and acquiring new agencies abroad on the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Furthermore, it expanded both its container vessel fleet and its overland transportation fleet. It also purchased new freight cars to use in rail transportation.

It launched the first regular cabotage service with containers in Turkey
In July 2010, Arkas began the cabotage shipments it had been planning for more than 10 years. The project was launched after the necessary regulations went into effect and is being carried out as a cooperative venture between Arkas Line, which is Arkas Holding’ s own shipping company and Arkas Anadolu Logistics, which provides integrated transportation services.

Cabotage freight is transported by two vessels weekly on an Istanbul-Kocaeli- Bursa-Izmir-Mersin route. The vessels on this route also call at the Gazimağusa port in TRNC to transport import and export goods.



Arkas continued to grow with new offices: 33 offices in 15 countries
For more than 10 years, Arkas has been structured for the purpose of providing agency services and to be a shipping company that provides regular lines services in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Arkas generally prefers to establish local partnerships as a way of prioritizing local perspectives and local values so that it can be successful in the countries it serves, and aims to create a integrated service chain in the foreign countries in which it has offices, just like it has in Turkey. Arkas continued its foreign investments in 2010, opening a second office in Kiev for the Arkas Ukraine company headquartered in Odessa, and founded new companies in Georgia under the name Arkas Georgia, and in Russia under the name Arlogic Russia to strengthen its position in the Black Sea. At the end of the year, Arkas went on the offensive in the Mediterranean founding two new companies named Arkas Levant-Syria and Arkas Levant-Lebanon, which began operations on 1 January 2011. Arkas runs its own offices in Greece, Italy, Monaco, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia.

New agencies were acquired abroad
Arkas represents world leading shipping companies abroad just as it does in Turkey, and in 2010, it added new agency representations that it purchased abroad. Global Container Agency, the Arkas representative in Morocco, acquired agency services for Hamburg Süd, which has marine shipping operations around the world. Currently representing Arkas Line and Hapag-Lloyd in Algiers, Arkas Algerie has also added dependable transportation with Hamburg Süd to its services. Arcas Dacia, the Arkas company in Romania, and Arlogic, its logistics company in Ukraine, has started providing agency services for United Ocean Lines (UOL), which meets global criteria.

The Arkas fleet expands
In 2010, the twin ships M/V Martine A and M/V Natalia A were added to the fleet. Arkas continued to invest in vessels in 2010, purchasing two 2,500 TEU container ships constructed at the Volkswerft Stralsund Shipyard in Germany owned by the Hegemann Yard Group. Arkas received delivery of the first of the two vessels, the M/V Vivien A, in May 2010 and its twin sister M/V Gülbeniz A in April 2011. Arkas is not only expanding its fleet, but is also updating it by disposing of some low capacity vessels. Today, Arkas has the largest container feet in Turkey with 25 container vessels under the Turkish flag and five double-hull barges under the Turkish flag. The shipping capacity of the container vessels has reached 36,290 TEU.

Equipment investments were made in the logistics group
Arkas Transport, which conducts domestic overland container transportation for Arkas, has added 114 Renault Trucks Premium “Alliance 430.19T 4x2 Euro 5” tractors to its fleet. With this acquisition, Arkas Transport increased the number of tractors in its fleet to 429 and lowered the average age by four years. The railway transportation company Ar-Gü purchased twenty 90-foot platform cars. Ar-Gü took delivery of the first 10 of these cars, which are preferred for railroad transportation in Europe, and will take delivery of 10 more of this same type of car this month, raising the number of cars to 615. The company has been using these custom cars, which can carry two 45-foot containers, on its Kayseri-Mersin line since December.

Marport handled 1,670,000 TEU in 2010
Marport is the container port with the highest volume and broke its own record by handling 1,670,000 TEU in 2010. Marport also accelerated its work on quality improvement and earned the three-star "Competency in Excellence Certificate” as a result of an external assessment conducted by The Turkish Quality Association (KalDer), which is the EFQM representative in Turkey.