Turkey is a strong industrial country and the company is pleased to have established a partnership with Turkish BMC in the continuous search for higher-quality buses, UBSI CEO Tevfik Afifi said during the award ceremony.

UBSI-BMC has imported 350 buses from Turkey since the partnership began in 2007. The buses provide services in Israel’s northern and central regions as well as international services to Amman and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The Afifi Group, which used to import buses from European brands such as Volvo and Mercedes, grew to become the third largest bus importer in Israel after starting its partnership with BMC.

The UBSCI-BMC partnership kept doing business and has sold more than 300 buses in the past two years despite the diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel. UBSCI-BMC also offers maintenance and other services to a fleet of about 700 buses that provide public transportation in Israel.

The group has been active in the bus transportation sector for 80 years. The group, which first started doing business by importing trucks, is now active in many sectors such as tourism, technology, automotive and housing, Afifi said.

This year the award ceremony was not held in Tel Aviv like past ceremonies, but in Nazareth at the company’s headquarters. This year also marked the first time the prize was given to a company owned by Arab-Israelis.

The prize had not been awarded for the previous two years because of the political crisis between the two countries, said the business council’s chairman, Menaşe Karmon. “This year we made our choice, having learned how to co-live with the political crisis.”

Trade volume between Turkey and Israel has increased by 30 percent in the last two years, Karmon said.