The character of Mr. McGuire in the 1967 motion picture “The Graduate” was right on the money. “Plastics … There’s a great future in plastics,” he said to the young Benjamin Braddock.

The folks at Bayegan, the Turkish industrial conglomerate, have known about the promise of plastics since the mid- 20th century, when the company’s founder decided to concentrate on polymers instead of burlap. Talk about foresight. As much of a visionary as he was, even Cafer Bayegan could not have imagined how far the company that bears his name would come to dominate the plastics trade in the Middle East.

“Plastics used to come almost entirely from Europe and North America, but now the Middle East is becoming central to this business,” the company’s co-chief executive, Ruya Ermec Bayegan, says. Baygean is obviously well-placed to take advantage of this geographical shift. Its headquarters in Istanbul is perfectly situated between the European industrial centers and the oil fields of the Arabian peninsula.

For decades, the Middle East concentrated on refining oil. But these days the governments – many of which are cashstrapped after a dizzying decade of infrastructure development projects – have decided to concentrate on higher margin oil businesses like plastics manufacturing.

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