Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

In his opening speech, Öztürk Oran made an assessment about the activities of the Council. Oran underlined that the sector councils take an active role in solving the problems and stated that they are aware that the sector faces many problems such as reference price application and difficulties in the licensing processes of imported products. Oran stated that they are ready to provide full support as TOBB in solving these problems.

Council President Nezih Barut made brief evaluations about the agenda items.

Barut stated that the activities are carried out uninterrupted in order to add more value to our country with the investments of the sector, advanced technology, increasing R&D competence, production power, qualified employment and technology-intensive exports.

- The additional burden and exchange rate loss undertaken by the sector due to the exchange rate increased to 68%

Nezih Barut pointed out that since 2015, the additional burden undertaken by the sector due to the exchange rate has increased to 68%, while the high increase in auxiliary materials, packaging materials, transportation prices and labor costs has adversely affected the sector.

At the meeting, the problems arising from the Drug Pricing legislation and the amendment of the Drug Reimbursement Regulation were discussed by the Members and the initiatives to be taken were evaluated. In addition, the Members stated that they have suffered huge export losses due to delays in the licensing process and that they expect improvements in the license periods in order to reduce the foreign trade deficit in pharmaceuticals and to increase the share of the Turkish pharmaceutical sector in foreign markets.

At the meeting, as TOBB Pharmaceutical Industry Council, it was decided to carry out a detailed study on which strategies and policies should be developed for the production and export of biotechnological and biosimilar drugs in our country and to take the necessary initiatives.