Minister of Commerce Pekcan targets to make small tradesmen into exporters

Minister of Commerce Ruhsar PEKCAN has announced that they have prepared a new action plan for small tradesmen covering the years 2020-2024. Regarding the issue PEKCAN said, “Our goal is to enable our small tradesmen and artisans to start exporting rather than operating in the domestic market, only using e-commerce facilities and opportunities.

Ms. PEKCAN went on to say, “As the Ministry, we are laying the foundations of a new understanding in trade. The world is undergoing a new process of transformation in economic and technological terms. In this period, we continue to work with our small tradesmen and craftsmen who are the capillaries of the economy. We have realized many innovations regarding the “Law on the Regulation of Retail Trade” and facilities / assistance to enable our tradesmen to have places in shopping malls.

On the other hand, the biggest difficulty our tradesmen had to cope with to expand their businesses was tax and bank debts as well as high interest rates. While they used to borrow with 42 percent interest rate in 2002, today they can do this with 4 percent only.

She said that the Ministry identified the problems of said group and worked on solution suggestions adding as the Ministry they would be a follower of every step to be taken in this regard and continue to solve the problems encountered in commercial life quickly.

She stated that increasing exports of high value goods had become a priority for developing Turkey to climb from middle-income to high-income group of countries and to make it happen Turkey should have a much bigger number of exporters.

She went on to say, “For this purpose, we have started the Marketing and Branding Project for Tradesmen and Craftsmen project in order to increase branding and export capacity. Our target is that the tradesmen and craftsmen are no longer local and they can benefit from e-commerce opportunities. We expect each artisan and craftsman to grow their business more and take their place in foreign trade community. Hopefully, we will be successful regarding these targets, especially in Istanbul which is open to the world and a leading mega city in global tourism”.