Trade Minister Pekcan: We will orient our local tradesmen to world markets
Trade Minister RUHSAR PEKCAN who attended a meeting of Chamber of Tradesmen and Artisans organized in Istanbul made a speech sharing some important good news regarding Turkish economy. The Minister shared the following;
“As the Ministry, we are laying the foundations for a new understanding in trade. The world is undergoing a new transformation process in terms of economy and technology. During this period, we are also working with our tradesmen and craftsmen who are the capillaries of our economy. We have already implemented many regulations regarding trade in our country and we have made a lot of innovations about the Law on the Regulation of Retail Trade for our citizens involved to be able to compete in a fair manner. We have brought solutions concerning tax, bank debts, high interest rate issues. For instance they used loans with 47 percent interest rate in 2002 whereas today they can use the same loan for 4 percent interest rate only. We identify the problems our tradesmen face and focus on alternative solutions and we will be following up on every step to be taken in this direction.”
Trade Minister Pekcan also said, “Our goal is to orient and encourage our tradesmen to become exporters, using e-commerce opportunities”.
She added that Turkey was rapidly developing and it was important to increase exports with high added value to reach the level of high-income countries. She said to achieve this target Turkey needed to increase the number of exporters as well. The minister went on to say such business owners and craftsmen needed to reflect their success in local trade to foreign trade as well and continued as follows:
“For this purpose, we have launched the Marketing and Branding Project for Tradesmen and Craftsmen in order to increase marketing, branding and export capacity. Our goal is to see to it our tradesmen and craftsmen, can turn into exporters using e-commerce opportunities. We are giving the necessary trainings in this regard. We expect each of our tradesmen and artisans to expand their businesses more and more in foreign trade community. Hopefully we will succeed in these goals, especially in Istanbul which is a city open to the world”.
