TİM President Gültepe: We reached $210 billion in exports in the first 10 months"

"Mustafa Gültepe, the President of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM), attended the 'Stars of Export' award ceremony organized by the Southeastern Anatolia Exporters' Associations (GAİB) at their headquarters in Gaziantep. Gültepe stated that Gaziantep is always a city that produces and exports. He emphasized that exports are the locomotive of a country and exporters act with this awareness. Gültepe said, 'Last month, we demonstrated a highly successful export performance. We achieved the highest October export with $22.9 billion. We reached $210 billion in exports in the first 10 months. Thus, we turned positive in the total exports for the first 10 months compared to the previous year. This transition to the positive was very important for us. Demand in global markets is moving slowly. Our competitiveness has suffered due to high costs. On top of that, we experienced the earthquakes on February 6. The earthquakes, including 6 in the GAİB region, brought production and exports in 11 of our provinces to a standstill. However, we did not give up, we did not collapse. We stood shoulder to shoulder with our associations.'

Gültepe mentioned an economy management in Ankara that prioritizes exports and engages in consultations with exporters. He said, 'In the last 4-5 months, significant steps have been taken in terms of access to credit. For example, the credit volume of Eximbank has been increased. The daily limit of rediscount credits has been increased tenfold. The fact that the total interest rate of this credit will not exceed the policy rate was also an important step for our exporters.' Gültepe also explained that, as TİM, they signed credit protocols with 11 public and private banks. He stated, 'With the protocol, we envisaged a credit volume of $1 billion. In 2 months, we exceeded this volume by far. As of November 15, the total credit used by about 5,000 of our companies approached $1.7 billion.'

GAİB Coordinanator President Ahmet Fikret Kileci also reminded that the region experienced a major earthquake disaster on February 6. Emphasizing that they are working for the region to rapidly recover after the disaster, Kileci highlighted that exporters have the power to achieve this. He said, 'We take this confidence from the lands we live in and the strength coming from our ancestors. This is a challenging geography. It is not easy to be successful and survive here. We will not be affected by any negativity, and we will always stand tall. The world is changing rapidly. We must definitely keep up with this pace. We must somehow give up old jobs and produce new models of production suitable for the new order. Today, every product we produce finds a buyer everywhere in the world. The only point we stumble on is not the product we produce but the method. We must review our methods for sure.'"