Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

The cooperation protocol, signed and announced at the meeting held at TOBB Union Center, aims to satisfactorily provide information on the finance opportunities of the business world.

Speaking at the signature ceremony, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu said that, thanks to the cooperation protocol, information on all finance opportunities in our country and how to reach them would be relayed to firm owners and directors in many provinces of Anatolia.

Stating that seminars to facilitate the business world’s ability to access existing finances and the simplification of the procedure, Hisarcıklıoğlu spoke, “We want to inform and broaden the horizons of our members about investment projects and the strong financing of exports, export insurance, lowering market risks primarily pertaining to exchange risk with derived instruments, obtaining resources from market exchanges.”

- “The Turkish private sector is having an x-ray taken”

“We all know that our country’s production capacity is built upon SMBs (Small and Medium sized Businesses). Many times the number of closed companies per year are established in their places. However, we are unable to grow and develop our companies.”

Stating that they have been conducting “Trade Registry Gazette Electronic Archive” work for a while now, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that it would enable the retrieval of the complete history of companies established in Turkey.

Hisarcıklıoğlu spoke, “This project, which we will announce in the coming days, is taking an x-ray of the Turkish private sector. When we examine the first findings of this project, we see about 1 million active companies in Turkey. Each year, about 100,000 new companies are established. The duration of companies changes between 5 and 10 years, whereas we see companies in the West and East that last for centuries. There are companies which have operated for 200, 300, even 500 years. Why is this not the case with Turkey?

Our problem lies in the fact that we easily establish companies but can’t make them last. Because we do not have the necessary capital. Because our financial system is not robust enough. Because we are unable to develop institutional administration principles in our companies.

When you add a lack of knowledge pertaining to existing finance opportunities and risk-lowering methods to this situation our SMBs face difficulties in their activities.”

- Our companies are unaware of the Political Risk and Export Insurance

Drawing attention to the fact that bilateral commercial relations with Middle East countries are developing rapidly, Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that contracting revenue and export are rapidly increasing.

Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “However, these markets are challenging markets. Turkish entrepreneurs overcome all obstacles but the recent political instability of the region threatens our companies.

We are collaborating with the Foreign Economic Relations Council and Eximbank to solve this issue. Our teams are working to provide our companies with “Political Risk and Export Insurance” under better conditions.

In this regard we have conducted a survey on large and medium sized companies as well. 74% of the companies taking part in the survey stated that they do not have sufficient knowledge of the Political Risk and Export Insurance. Think of it, these are companies above a certain size. You can imagine the state of small companies.”

- Relation between the banking sector and the real sector will be improved

Bringing to mind Turkey’s 2023 goals and emphasizing the need for increasing exports and strengthening entrepreneurs, Hisarcıklıoğlu spoke;

“We must fully realize our potential in the most efficient manner to reach these goals. To fully realize our potential we must possess a vast reservoir of knowledge. We must ensure the development of the financial tools needed by our companies and raising of awareness of all our companies to these tools.

Today we take a step in this direction. The cooperation we will undertake will enable the relations between the banking sector and the real sector to develop.

With the meetings and seminars we will conduct at the four corners of Anatolia, we will strengthen the trust between the representatives of the private sector and the banking sector, we will increase the exchange of information, we will contribute to the enrichment of our country together.
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