Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

TOBB Joint Council Meeting was held at TOBB Twin Towers with the participation of Trade Minister Mehmet Muş.

Hisarcıklıoğlu said that as an institution, they have reached all the capillaries of the economy, so that they can see the situation on the ground in the best way and identify issues and problems.

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they submitted nearly 200 proposals and requests to the government and ministry during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of which were implemented, and that the positive results of the support steps were also seen.

Hisarcıklıoğlu stressed that they find the recent recovery of the extraordinary devaluation of the Turkish lira positive and support every step towards stabilizing the markets. “‎We believe that getting rid of the high interest burden, as well as ensuring stability and predictability in financial markets, will be a major boost to the growth of the economy.‎ We are also pleased to see positive and concrete steps taken towards the payment of private sector receivables pending in the public sector.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu said that all these developments have raised morale in the real sector and increased their enthusiasm to work.

“Of course, there are problems in some matters. In particular, we see that our banks have increased their loan interest rates extraordinarily in recent days, despite the fact that funding costs from the Central Bank have fallen to 14 percent. We hear that some banks apply loan interest rates of 25-30 percent, or even around 35 percent to their credit deposit accounts. If we are going to grow our country's economy and increase production, investment, employment and exports, we must all put our hands up and make sacrifices. The real sector taking giving everything and the financial sector taking all the profit is no basis for fairness.‎ We expect our banks to be more conscientious now.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that he believes it would be useful to continue the support steps for the sectors most affected by the pandemic, especially the services and trade sector, and who do not get enough share of the growth.

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that in order to sustain strong growth, the reduction in loan interest rates and inflation, the stability of exchange rates and the fact that this can be achieved again, as in the past, “We anticipate that financing costs can be reduced permanently with the provision of stability in the markets. We believe in the importance of your policies to support business, trade and exports. For the first time with you, our share of global trade has risen above 1 percent,” he said.

Hisarcıklıoğlu noted that the desire of the United States and the EU to change the Asian dependent resource supply model could quickly move Turkey to the position of reliable supplier country by standing out in the global supply chain:

“For this, we need to make plans for sustainable growth and high value-added production and exports in 2022 and beyond while taking steps to strengthen stability. In addition to the transformation of the global supply chain, green consensus and steps taken within the framework of climate change also contain significant opportunities and threats. As Turkey, we need to take the necessary steps quickly in order to position our country and business world well in this new period. For this reason, we should further tighten the public-private dialogue and position ourselves among the winning countries in this process with common sense.”

- Minister of Commerce Muş

Trade Minister Mehmet Muş pointed out that as the Ministry, they attach great importance to consultation with the business world in all processes related to commercial life, and said that they try to quickly evaluate and finalize the requests received during these consultations.

Muş noted that despite the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkey's economy managed to achieve high growth rates in 2021, “92 percent of the high rate of growth realized was due to our net exports and our share of global exports increased in 2021 with the weighting of the share of manufacturing industry and exports in our economic growth.”

Minister Muş stressed that they, as the Ministry, have put forward new visions and strategies to support exporters.

Muş informed that they have made support payments to more than 7,200 companies this year by continuing the existing support for goods exports, and said, “The support budget we have allocated to our exporters for 2022 is 5.2 billion liras. Hopefully, with the effects of the pandemic diminishing, our exporters will carry out more activities and we will support them more.”

Muş stated that the ratio of exports to imports has been on the rise especially recently and that the current account balance has been more positive.

Minister Muş pointed to the level achieved in the provision of stability and predictability in the economy with the steps taken in the last 20 years. “‎We will continue to work as the government to protect and sustain this. ‎Here, we expect support from you business representatives for the continuation of this positive mood in the economy after the currency fluctuation has been eliminated. We're all in the same boat. We must put our hands together for the future of our country.”

“Yes, there has been a cost increase due to currency differences, but there has been a loosening of rates in the last period. As a result, there is a justified expectation that prices will go down in our citizens. I expect this expectation to be met, and I would like to reiterate that we are following the process closely. As the Ministry, we carry out our audits in 81 provinces for all stages of the supply chain, especially retail outlets. We will continue these audits in the coming period.”

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu met with chamber/commodity exchange heads after the council meeting.