Trade Minister Pekcan says Turkey will start new era in exports

In her speech at the introductory meeting for “Digital Customs in Exportation” held by the Ministry of Commerce at the Marriott Hotel, Minister of Commerce Ruhsar Pekcan said that 2019 would be the year of performance for the ministry.

The Minister also added they were performing a major transformation in exports. She went on to say, “we are shifting to paperless export practice where all transactions are made electronically”.

Pekcan stated that digitalization directly affected foreign trade and the competitiveness of the countries as a “mega trend” and old models were losing their validity thanks to the technologies such as block chain, artificial intelligence and the internet of objects. She said these would be the areas that would determine the conditions of competition in the coming period adding Turkey would not fall behind certainly in this process of transformation.

Pekcan who noted that Turkey with its strategic position at this point of great transformation and changing was also located at an important transit center, said they continued to take steps to improve exports and promote Turkey brand all over the world and support manufacturers and exporters.

Pekcan stated that they aimed to bring digitalization and e-commerce to the forefront in domestic trade, foreign trade and customs, and that they focused on applications based on electronic systems in all services.

The Minister noted that they made very important arrangements to ensure that commercial activities in Turkey, run in a transparent, fast, easy and safe manner.

She went on to say,

“We have implemented very important works for the modernization of our customs and the digitalization of our customs processes. We aim to process the documents in electronic form in all services provided by our Ministry. Since the date I took office, we have been able to start many services such as Single Window, Port Single Window, Container and Port Tracking System, Free Zone Entry Exit Program. Now, we are making a big transformation in exportation by shifting to paperless application. All transactions will be done without papers. All kinds of transactions and procedures such as documents, civil servant transactions, petitions and communications with officers etc. with will be recorded in electronic environment.

Pekcan noted that these systems were tested at Esenboga Airport and Ataturk Airport customs and all customs in Turkey would shift to the new system as of April 30th.