The Ministry of Culture and Tourism's General Directorate of Investments and Enterprises has announced that the length of stay of foreign flagged private yachts in Turkish territorial waters can be extended for another 5 years.
The General Directorate of Investments and Enterprises of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism took an initiative regarding the length of stay of foreign-flagged private yachts in Turkish territorial waters in order to eliminate the victimization caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Directorate ruled that the stay of these yachts can be extended for another 5 years.
In the letter sent by the General Directorate of Investment and Enterprises of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, “The General Directorate of Investment and Enterprises of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has stated that the duration of stay in Turkish territorial waters is regulated by the provision of Article 29, paragraph 1 of the Tourism Incentive Law No. 2634: ‘Foreign flagged marine tourism vessels can stay in Turkey for up to 5 years for the purposes of excursion, maintenance, repair, berthing or winterization. This period can be extended for another 5 years by the Ministry according to the principles specified in the regulation’.
As it is known, there are foreign flagged private yachts that cannot perform their exit procedures from our country due to the travel restrictions imposed all over the world due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
In this process, within the framework of the travel restrictions decisions applied all over the world, taking into account the fact that the conditions in Article 46 of the Maritime Tourism Regulation cannot be met and the exit procedures from our country cannot be carried out, in order to eliminate the grievances caused by the force majeure caused by the epidemic and to prevent disputes that may arise in practice, 01.01.2015, or the foreign-flagged private yachts that have entered Turkey after 01.01.2015 or have been granted a time extension from our Ministry but whose period of stay in Turkey has expired before 31.05.2021, it has been deemed appropriate to extend the period of stay in Turkey until 31.05.2021 without the need for any application or procedure with the Ministerial Authority Olur dated 14.10.2020 and numbered 765765.’.
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