The 9th meeting of the Advisory Board of the Ministry of Commerce was held at the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) under the chairmanship of Minister of Commerce Ruhsar Pekcan.
TOBB President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) President İsmail Gülle, Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) President Nail Olpak, Turkish Tradesmen and Craftsmen Confederation Chairman Bendevi Palandöken, Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) President Simone Kaslowski attended the meeting. , Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) Chairman Abdurrahman Kaan, Turkish Contractors Association President Mithat Yenigün and International Investors Association (YASED) President Ayşem Sargın attended.
Pekcan, at the opening of the meeting, stated that the advisory board meeting is the “summit meeting of trade” and that they will evaluate policies related to increasing exports and spreading them to the base, which is the basis of growth and development.
Providing information about the work done since the last meeting, Pekcan said, “At the last meeting, it was brought up that private companies should also benefit from export supports. We have started our work on this. Hopefully, we will complete our legislative work and enable new members to join our export family.”
Pekcan reminded that the problems related to money transfers in countries where the banking system is not developed were brought to the agenda at the last meeting, and noted that the requests regarding this issue were forwarded to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.
Pointing out that they will discuss the European Green Deal intensively in the coming days, Pekcan said, “We created a working group in this direction. First of all, we held our first meeting on February 4, under the coordination of my deputy ministers and with the participation of the deputy ministers and general managers of the relevant ministries. Our second meeting was held with civil society.” “We will do this with representatives from other organizations and determine our road maps in this direction.” he said.
Pekcan stated that they addressed the problems reported regarding the “proof of origin” application and noted that they started working on this issue and discussed what could be done to prevent origin deviation in their meetings with European Union member countries.
“We will continue our growth-oriented work under the leadership of production”
Underlining that they achieved significant success in exports last year despite the slowdown in the global economy and trade, Pekcan said:
“Our work continues to accelerate in 2020 and we started January with a record again. We were lucky enough to announce the highest January export figure. In January, we announced 14.8 billion dollars of exports with an increase of 6.1 percent. In the same period, our imports increased by 18.9 percent to 19 percent. 2 billion dollars. Our total foreign trade increased by 13 percent, reaching 34 billion dollars. This positive course of the Turkish economy is actually reflected in the indicators. The industrial production index increased by 8.6 percent in December 2019 compared to the same month of the previous year. This is the year of 2018. “It was the fastest rise since February. We will continue our efforts to make this performance permanent and to focus on growth led by production.”
Referring to the figures announced by the World Trade Organization for the January-November period last year, Pekcan said, “While a decrease was observed in the 50 countries that exported the most in the world, in the 11th month-end data, as in the 9th month, Turkey ranked as the 7th country with the highest export increase.” “The expectations and the announced figures show that 2020 will be a positive and successful year.” made his assessment.
Reminding that TURKSTAT’s “Economic Confidence Index” for January this year was 97.1, an increase of 17.7 percent compared to the same month last year, Pekcan said, “We will work together to go beyond our success in 2019 in 2020.” said.
Pointing out that they have been carrying out trade diplomacy activities intensively since the beginning of the year, Pekcan stated that they held bilateral high-level meetings in Nigeria, Morocco, Davos, Algeria, Gambia, Senegal, Lithuania, Ukraine, Croatia and Pakistan during the said period.
“We divided the export supports into 3”
Pekcan stated that exports are the “engine” of Turkey’s industrialization and growth, and emphasized that their main goal as the Ministry is to develop exports and spread them to the base. Pekcan stated that, as a natural result of this vision, they support companies at every stage of export.
Noting that they divided the supports into three groups: export preparation, marketing and branding, Pekcan said that at the meeting, they will discuss issues such as how to make the supports more effective, how the business world can benefit from it sufficiently and modernization studies at customs.
Pekcan stated that they have also activated automation support as of January 2 and continued his words as follows:
“Our business people can now receive all support through automation. With our newly commissioned consultant network system, we ensure that our trade consultants spread all over the world work in coordination with our ministry. As of January 2, we opened the ‘consult the consultant line’ to the business world. Our consultants are at the service of our business world 24 hours a day.”
Pekcan stated that they will also discuss the new term strategy of the World Turkish Business Council, which brings together Turkish entrepreneurs and professionals on the same platform, and that they will listen to YASED’s work on the post-Brexit process.
