Project Management Group, the Irish engineering and consulting business, has secured sales of approximately €25 million since it began targeting the market in Turkey three years ago, Ankara-based director Tim Hickey said yesterday.

He was speaking at the official opening of the group's new offices in the Turkish capital by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore.

Mr Hickey said Turkey was now the focus of foreign direct investment in Europe and he urged Irish businesses to examine the prospects for business there.

The group is working on a number of very large projects that involve EU and Turkish government funding as well as building specialised industrial buildings for clients it has worked for before in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. The estimated investment for the environmental sector over the next 10 years could be in excess of €38 billion.

Hakan Elmali, operations manager with PM Group in Ankara, said clients in the food, health and car manufacturing sectors who had used the group before, and who now wanted to set up operations in Turkey, were contacting the Turkish office and suggesting projects.

The group is considered to be the world’s number one in terms of the design and construction of specialised buildings for the pharma sector, and number two in the food sector.

Mr Hickey said the work it was doing in Turkey involved a huge amount of spin-off work for firms in Ireland to whom it subcontracts elements of the projects.

Mr Hickey praised the work of Enterprise Ireland in helping PM Group do business in Turkey. "Three years ago Turkey was our biggest opportunity for doing business in the region and it still is today."