Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

As part of the “Strengthening Turkey’s Quality Infrastructure Project” 67 Commodity Exchange personnel received their certificates in a ceremony held at the TOBB Union Center. Attending the ceremony were TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, Minister of State Zafer Çağlayan, EU Turkey Delegation Vice-President Tibor Varadi, Foreign Trade Undersecretariat and Industry and Trade Ministry representatives, LKA/YT Members and presidents of chambers/exchanges with laboratories.

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu, speaking at the certificate ceremony, “Our exchanges have been making very important investments especially in the last 10 years in order to provide better service and keep track of products. Many of our exchanges have renovated their headquarters. They have invested in storage facilities, weighbridges, livestock market spaces and laboratories. Unfortunately, during this time, the necessary investment into the training of technical personnel was not made.

It is to address this lack that we have taken the first step in this project. With this project our personnel will have whatever training resources any lab personnel has in the EU.

Our labs self-improving labs will form the base for “authorized classification” in conjunction with the Licensed Storage system. We, as TOBB, will continue to provide all necessary support.
This project is of the utmost importance in that it will enable our citizens to have access to verifiably healthier and higher quality foodstuffs as well as increasing the added value in the agriculture.
As the world population continues to rise the demand for food will increase dramatically in the coming years, it is for this reason that investments in agriculture and food are increasing globally. The agricultural sector, which we unfortunately neglected because it wasn’t productive enough, was the sector least affected by the global economic crisis.”

Pointing out that accreditation for laboratories has become very important, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Because you can test your products however you like. You can document the results. But so long as the documents are not trustworthy, meaning it is not accepted internationally, then it is worthless. Accredited laboratories raise quality as well as lowering their costs and gaining large profits.”
Stating that, as TOBB, they are situated directly in the center of agriculture via the Commodity Exchanges, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that commodity exchanges allow the commodities which are in their quotation the widest market spread, becoming institutions wherein prices are decided on a supply and demand basis.
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