Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

During the working luncheon, the Chairmen of Turkish-African, Gulf and Middle Eastern Business Councils expressed their views on potential measures and steps to be taken concerning the latest developments in the region.

 

In his opening remarks, Mr. M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, the TOBB President expressed his deep sorrow and concern for the tragic effects of the earthquake in Japan. Mr. Hisarcıklıoğlu added that “As a nation which suffered the same sorrow in the past, we have deep sympathy with Japanese people and I would like to express our condolences on behalf of Turkish business community. But we shouldn’t forget that natural disaster risk is high for Turkey as well.”

 

-“ Turkey carried out a successful and rapid evacuation operation in Libya”

 

TOBB President Mr. Hisarcıklıoğlu said that they came together with State Minister Zafer Çağlayan and the Chairmen of Turkish-African, Middle Eastern and Gulf Business Councils in order to evaluate the recent development in the region and announced that “We will discuss potential effects of incidents that first started in Tunisia and then continued with Egypt and Libya, on our economic relations”.

 

Mr. Hisarcıklıoğlu underlined that Turkey carried out a successful and rapid evacuation operation which was appreciated by whole world and thanked to the government and State by saying that “Our State didn’t leave its citizens alone, and offered this service not just to its own citizens, but to those of other countries as well.

 

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that “We have undertaken 33 billion dollar contracting services in the last 3 years in North Africa, Middle East and Gulf. Our exports to this region have reached 26 billion dollars last year. We have 9.5 billion dollar investment in the region. And our tourism revenues generated by tourists coming from the region have reached 4 billion dollars.

 

-“We prepared a 14-article list of suggestions related to the recent developments in the region”

 

TOBB Presiden Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that DEİK has been in close touch with its members who are active in those countries since the very beginning of incidents, and continued that:

 

“DEİK’s member profile is ranging from foreign direct investors, contractors, bankers, insurance companies, logistics firms to legal advisors.

 

We organized meetings with Executive Committees of our Business Councils which reflects that diversity with the aim of exchanging views and developing solution offers. As a result of those efforts, we prepared our list of suggestions composed of 14 articles last week.

 

• Our contractors have already 3 chronic problems. We brought up the issues of letter of guarantee, political risk insurance and project finance.

 

• It is difficult for us to compete in new and old markets with 8% commissions for letters of guarantee issued by foreign banks.

 

• In addition to that, while we are talking about high risk markets, we don’t have political risk insurance policies. We stressed that we expected an affordable political risk insurance policy from Turkish Eximbank.

 

• We also need project finance support in order to compete with Koreans, Italians and Germans. We also underlined our expectations for project finance facilities from Turkish Eximbank.

 

• We said that we are suggesting establishing mediation committees for future negotiations with Libyan Authorities. We all agreed that public-private sector cooperation is essential for assessment of damages and securing the actual contracts.

 

• We understood that it is important to sign and put into force the Agreements for Mutual Promotion and Protection of Investments, Avoidance of Double Taxation and Social Security with all countries. And we should revise such agreements that need a revision as soon as possible.

 

-We are here to create a new road map

 

Mr. Hisarcıklıoğlu stressed their full faith that the problems will be resolved very soon thanks to high level official contacts and stated that “As TOBB and DEİK, we are ready to do our part. Now we will focus on how to deal with actual problems of our companies.

 

DEİK shall initiate a joint project on political risk insurance in cooperation with World Bank and Islamic Development Bank in April 2011. We will give priority to projects related to our investors and contractors.

 

Crisis desks under the leadership of our Minister and Undersecretariat for Foreign Trade were behind Turkey’s success in this crisis management. They worked as a disaster coordination center. I would like to take this opportunity to thank to our Minister for his efforts.

 

Now we are here to create a new roadmap. We will continue to work closely with our Minister. Being here with us, with such an important delegation today demonstrates the importance attached by H.E. Zafer Çağlayan, to our efforts.

 

-Minister Çağlayan: “Exporters need to get acquainted with insurance”

 

State Minister Zafer Çağlayan stressed that Turkish exporters and businessmen should get acquainted with and use insurance system and said that “Turkey’s exports to Libya amount to 2 billion dollars whereas the total amount of insurance is 1 million dollar. Insurance premiums are not very high, almost less than five in a thousand. I am ready to support our exporters with additional sources of Undersecretariat for Foreign Trade in order to familiarize them with insurance practice if needed.

 

State Minister Zafer Çağlayan also stated that the world was going through an important change and they wish for a peaceful ending for this process in Middle East without creating any risk.

 

State Minister Zafer Çağlayan added that “There were 25.000 Turkish citizens in Libya, 15.000 of them were workers. Insurance premiums of 8092 Turkish workers in Libya were paid up in Turkey. The rest is those whose premiums were paid up in Libya. During 2009 crisis short-term working benefit was paid up to workers in order to avoid losses in employment in automotive sector. Now we have decided to pay short term working benefit to 8092 workers in Libya to be applied upon request by their companies, to be covered by unemployment fund. 475-186 TL shall be paid to workers for 3 months according to the amount of premiums already paid up. And the 3 month period might be extended depending on the normalization of situation in Libya. Minister Çağlayan also stated that workers might get vocational training support upon request.

 

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