The importance of marine transportation in Tekirdağ and analysis of socio-economic contribition

Tekirdağ is a rapidly developing province that is the gateway between Istanbul and Europe and has dense industrial areas around it. Sakarya has an important geostrategic location, which is the complementary and transit route of Kocaeli and Istanbul provinces, opening out the border. It provides high added value to the country's economy with its fertile agricultural lands, industry and tourism areas. With the development of trade with a large market like Europe, it attracts the attention of foreign investors. Being one of the border provinces of Thrace, being adjacent to a metropolitan city like Istanbul, having large organized industrial facilities around it and being on the seafront, it attracts the attention of domestic and foreign port investors to this region. Tekirdag, with integrated transportation networks; It has a suitable area for maritime, air, road and railway logistics transportation lines. The increase in diversity in the maritime transport sector with the increasing number of industrial enterprises in Tekirdag brings about economic changes in the region. The effects of maritime transportation, which provides cheaper opportunities for various sectors operating in the province to supply the raw materials they need or to transport the products they produce, come to the fore. Therefore, the integration of industry and port enterprises is increasing in Tekirdağ. Tekirdağ has a significant impact on the increase in the number of enterprises providing maritime transportation services in the region due to its coastline and close location to the straits. The aim of this study is to determine the importance of maritime transport in Tekirdağ, the analysis of its socioeconomic effects in the region and the interaction of industrial enterprises with maritime transport. Within the scope of the research, ports and industrial enterprises operating in the region were taken as a basis. The relationship of maritime transport with industrial enterprises and port facilities has been revealed and the socioeconomic structure provided to the region has been evaluated. The data obtained within the scope of the research were analyzed with the SPSS 24 program. Within the scope of the research, frequency and percentage analysis, which are descriptive analyzes, were used to give their distribution according to their demographic characteristics. In the descriptive analysis of the scales used in the research, mean and standard deviation values are given. As a result of the normal distribution of the data obtained, the hypothesis tests were statistically tested at the 95% confidence level, and independent sample t-test to examine the differences between the scores obtained from the scales compared to the groups of 2, and one-way ANOVA analysis to determine the differences between more than 2 groups. Chi-square analysis was performed to examine the relationship between categorical and categorical variables. The study is unique in that it reveals a scale development of the importance level of maritime transport in Tekirdağ Province in the literature. The results of the analysis of the importance of maritime transportation of the industrial enterprises in the region were found to be high. This study is based on how often the industrial enterprises in the region prefer the sea route for freight transportation, with which regions they make their cargo supply and shipments in the national area, the import and export regions in the international arena, the maritime transportation of the industrial enterprises and the problems originating from the region. In addition, these situations were evaluated according to the ownership status, legal nature and function of industrial enterprises.