Dinçer was speaking yesterday at a meeting organized to launch two new projects: one for the “Improvement of Occupational Health and Safety Conditions in Workplaces in Turkey” and the other for “Occupational Health and Safety Laboratories Technical Support.” He said that 1.87 million working days were estimated to have been lost due to occupational accidents in 2008, while this figure was predicted to reach 2 million for last year. “Occupational accidents, together with other problems they cause, are estimated to cost around TL 4 billion in a year, which is by no means an insignificant number,” he stated.
Approximately 81 percent of accidents occur in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the minister underlined. Fifteen percent of accidents happen in the metal sector and 7.5 percent occur in the construction sector he said, adding that the mining sector accounts for 10 percent of accidents but claims the most lives. The minister stressed that the recently launched projects are of great importance in this regard, since they mainly concentrate on improving conditions in SMEs and the sectors with the highest number of accidents.
