TİM President İsmail Gülle Comments on Protocol Signed with Türk Eximbank

As you know, our country stood united against the currency attacks we experienced in 2018. The direct control policies that our economic administration began implementing in response to this situation, the process that started with the New Economic Program and the recently announced ACCELERATION package, along with the incentives provided to investment and exports, have begun to normalize pricing habits showing deterioration in our economy. As the Turkish Exporters Assembly, we also signed a protocol with Eximbank, the bank of our exports and exporters, on 17 August 2018 with the presence of our Minister Ruhsar Pekcan. With this protocol, we made a decision regarding the allocation of TİM and our Exporter Associations' reserve funds to Eximbank. Finally, over the past year, the technical and legal infrastructure of the process was completed with the support of our Ministry. In order to implement this protocol, we held our fund transfer signing ceremony in Sivas, where the 100th Anniversary of the Sivas Congress, which laid the foundations of our Republic, was celebrated, in the historic congress building. With the said fund transfer to Eximbank, our exporters will take another step forward in accessing financing. Rising competitive conditions require our exporters to pursue a proactive strategy in their target markets and reduce market and product concentration. As our target markets, customer profiles and export costs differentiate, it is vital that we exporters focus primarily on operations and new product development.

For this reason, ease of access to financing primarily affects exporters' operational and production capability. From the day we took office, we have said this: An exporter's only concern should be to produce and market. While going to work, they should think not about money, but about producing innovative products and how to enter new target markets.

The reserve funds transfer project, which will become operational today, is therefore a very important opportunity for our exporters. As TİM being represented in Eximbank management gives us a voice in making the services provided to our exporters through Eximbank much more effective. This opportunity, this right belongs to all our exporters. The reserve funds transferred today are also accumulations made from the sweat of our exporters' brows. That is, as TİM and Associations, we continue to transfer to our exporters what we receive from them. Until today, we have provided technical support and guidance to our exporters on many subjects—from training to marketing, from target country studies to strategy formation, from innovation to branding. With the signature we are putting today, we have added to the work we have done so far on financing the very important service of providing financing itself to our companies. This pride belongs to all of us, to all our exporters. I once again express my thanks on behalf of all bank employees to our Minister of Commerce Ms. Ruhsar Pekcan, who has supported this project from the beginning, and to Eximbank's General Director Mr. Enis Gültekin for their valuable support.