CIHAN is an old family-owned business enterprise based in Erbil-Kurdistan. The roots date back to the late 1940s when the late Haj Yehya Saeed, the father of the Bajgeroglu brothers, started in the textile trade and after that in the textile and embroidery industry. His four sons Dr. Nevzat, Mr. Azat, Eng. Talat and Eng. Sabah are now at the helm. During the 1970s there was a big expansion of the textile plants, and wrapping material plants were added. In the 1980s CIHAN Co. was established as a local trading firm and in the early 1990s the business was re-located to Mersin-Turkey due to the then unstable situation in KurdistanIn 1994 a wide foodstuffs trading line was started, and soon became highly focused on a major tea trade undertaking with world-leading tea producers. Starting in 1997 CIHAN was expanding into the automotive, heavy machinery, power generators and home appliances import sector. By the end of 2000 CIHAN became one of the leading business enterprises with an extensive marketing and distribution network in Kurdistan and the other major cities in the country and, in addition to Mersin, established offices in Dubai and London. Several individual companies were established under the umbrella of the group to cover the now very diverse and expanding role in the market. The group capital turnover more than tripled. In 2007 there were several new additions to the group in the fields of petroleum services, banking, and community-oriented development. For 2008 CIHAN has ambitious plans to further develop its structure. CIHAN Tea: The foodstuffs trading was started with different kinds of staple items but finally became focused on tea. In 1994, the group acquired the agency of the most famous tea exporter in Sri Lanka, the AKBAR Brothers, The group started importing and marketing under its own brand (CIHAN Tea) and was covering the markets of Iraq, U. A. E. , Iran and Turkey. CIHAN automotive line: In 1996 an effort to introduce brand new car imports into Northern Iraq which was not subject to the severe restrictions imposed on the rest of the country. So in 1997, CIHAN was the first private sector firm to deliver brand new Toyota cars to the North of Iraq from ToyotaSa-Turkey with the support of both the United Nations and the Turkish Government. This developed to a direct cooperation with the Toyota Corporation through Toyota Tsusho Corp. And now the group is the only official private purveyor of Toyota cars to the Kurdistan regional government. A complete sales-service-parts operation is now established, and the cooperation with Toyota is currently being further consolidated. In 2005 Bajger Trading Co. became the official dealership of Mercedes- Benz in all of Northern Iraq, and in 2006 the Mercedes- Benz sales and after-sales complex was launched to become the first comprehensive dealership operating in the market addressing both passenger cars and commercial vehicles. In its second year, Bajger has set on its plan to network the region with Mercedes- Benz sales and after-sales outlets. The first expansion will be the commercial vehicles service operation in the important border city of Zakho. CIHAN Heavy Machinery: In this sector CIHAN is the general agent of Kawasaki-Japan in Iraq with sales, after-sales and parts. The group is also a market leader in the power generation sector. Cihan is the agent in Iraq for GHADDAR-Lebanon, AIRMAN-Japan, Lister-Petter U. K. and GENPOWER-Turkey. CIHAN Petroleum Services Co.: This was established in 2004, and started activity in 2007 after the legislations were passed allowing the private sector to operate in the field of oil products distribution and the related industries. The firm is now importing Mobil oils and products; and discussions regarding the Mobil distributorship are now underway.