Medikal Teknik September 2018

Interview
position of the second exporting
sector in June 2018. Among the
subjects give priority are the innovative
projects such as decreasing
the limit of green passport to 100
thousand dollars, establishment of
a private visa office for our exporters,
realizing exporter’s easy
access to finance, put the national
container line project into practice,
and localization thrust.
What is the effect of increase in
exchange rate of dollar on export
figures and chemical products in
the first half of the year?
Our chemical sector depends on
imports in terms of raw material
at the rate of 70 percent, whereas
even plastic and rubber sectors
are dependent upon imports in
terms of rat material at over the
rate of 90 percent. The most used
currencies in the global trade are
the Dollar and the Euro. From this
point of view, we can say that the
fluctuations in our country especially
in the recent period in Dollar
and Euro exchange rate have had
a negative effect on the costs of
our exporter firms trading in this
foreign currency.
Did these exchange rate increases
cause a drop in production?
Even if it did not happen, what
measures did the producers take?
Although the increases in exchange
rates negatively affect the
costs for our sector that provides
the raw material from abroad in
production, it is possible to prevent
the exchange rate risk by realizing
foreign trade operations in Turkish
Lira instead of foreign currency
units.
Trading in local currencies has a
positive effect on both sides. Today,
Turkey does business with many
countries such as Russia, India,
China, South Korea, Indonesia,
Mexico, Brazilin local currencies.
When we look at export figures,
we see that there is an increase in
exports made with these countries.
“Our goal is to make a big
contribution to 2023 export
targets of Turkey with Digital
Export Platform”
You had mentioned previously the
project “Five Pieces of Gold”, at
what phase is that project?
We started to work on all our other
promises, especially the green
passport issue. We have initiated
our initiatives fast at our TIM chairman
and Administration.
In order to increase our exports
and reach our 2023 targets, we
need to orientate our SMEs to exports
more. Because many of our
firms which are already on certain
levels have already substantially
completed their institutionalization,
they know how to export
and are be able to export to many
countries in the world. Also most
of our big firms are also eligible for
obtaining green passport.
However, the vast majority of our
SME-sized companies still suffer
from difficulties in exporting and
finding new markets. Those who
have started exporting cannot attend
foreign trade fairs and similar
business trips because they have
passport and visa problems.
Our goal is, by ensuring the owners
of SMEs, which have reached 100
thousand dollar annual exporting
volume in 3 years consecutively, or
their one the manager who is authorized
signatory to get the right
of green passport, to eliminate
their travel restrictions and to help
them find new markets. Thanks to
that, we believe that we can also
ensure that they can export more.
Besides, while we declare our
“Digital Export Platform” promise,
we have foreseen that our new
governmental management system
will not remain indifferent to the
versatile digital transformation in
the world. As a matter of fact, both
the statements made by our Ministry
of Industry and Technology to
speed up the studies on this matter
and the Digital Transformation Office
established at the presidency
of the republic have justified our vision.
Our goal here is, by embracing
digitalism, which started with
Industry 4.0 and leaped into the
area of finance with digital money,
to catch up the digital transformation
in the world and accelerate
it and help our country’s exports
reach 2023 targets. In this area,
we will work more closely with our
TIM management together with our
government.
We expect a big participation in
China International Import Expo
2018”
There was a high level of participation
in the Private Label fair in
Amsterdam. What level of national
participation do you expect in a big
fair like the one in China?
As for private-label products sector,
we arranged Turkey National
Participation Organization this year
as 10th time to “PLMA’s World of
Private Label” international trade
fair, which is held every year. This
year, 94 Turkish companies, 47 of
which are as national participation
and operating on cosmetics,
personal car, cleaning, plastic
household goods, packaging and
food sectors, took part in this fair,
which has been holding for over
30 years. We are delighted to have
such a high level of participation.
As İKMİB, we support our exporters
with our national participation
organizations in order to enable
our firms to get new ideas and to
make cooperation links. Overseas
Eylül 2018 47