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ICI Assembly Hosts Adnan Yıldırım, Türk Eximbank GM

22.02.2017
News

February ordinary Assembly meeting of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry convened at ICI Foundation Vocational Education Complex on February 22, 2017 under the main agenda of “The Importance of Türk Eximbank’s Vision and Projects for Supporting the Competitive Strength of Industrialists and Exporters”. ICI Assembly meeting was moderated by Zeynep Bodur Okyay, ICI President of Assembly, and was attended by Adnan Yıldırım, Türk Eximbank GM.

In her opening address, Zeynep Bodur Okyay expressed their pleasure in having Adnan Yıldırım as the guest of the Assembly meeting, which was set to address the important matters affecting Turkish exporters, and expressed her confidence in Türk Eximbank to support industrialists and exporters with its new vision and growing opportunities in 2017.

Providing his comments on the Assembly’s agenda, Erdal Bahçıvan, ICI Chairman, said, “We are very pleased to see an increase in credit opportunities our exporters can benefit from, and particularly the post-shipping rediscount credits that support the competitive strength of our exporters.”

Bahçıvan continued as such:

“While the developments in the last period have been very positive regarding Türk Eximbank’s support for our exporters, what we hope to see is more long-term support through a change in vision on Türk Eximbank’s part. In this regard, I believe that Türk Eximbank should employ a vision that would prioritize qualified exports, and collaborate with the Credit Guarantee Fund to cater for investment credits.

Additionally, with regard to Türk Eximbank’s vision, I believe that the support should take on a sector based approach. Both credits and insurance require different models tailor made for each specific sector’s needs. For instance, the project-based business model of the machinery industry allows for pinpoint solutions.

Such solutions to better reach industrialists would bring Türk Eximbank and industrialists closer, thus allowing us to escape the shackles of banks in our exports. What is more natural than Türk Eximbank being the bank that best understands the expectations of us industrialists in terms of cost, maturity and conditions of export financing?

Incidentally, I would also like to talk about the newly introduced model that involves the Credit Guarantee Fund fully guaranteeing credits provided by Türk Eximbank. This collaboration and synergy between these two distinguished institutions has begun to provide a significant relief for the markets by alleviating the companies’ collateral burden. These are certainly promising and hopeful developments for our industry in 2017.”

Bahçıvan also shared exporters’ preference for the Turkish lira in credits they receive from Eximbank. “We expect the bank to expand the scope of its credit facility in Turkish liras. In this regard, there must be new instruments to protect our businesses against currency risks. There should be specialized credits to incentivize exports in Turkish liras.”

In his speech, Erdal Bahçıvan also mentioned the ICI’s contribution to the “Employment Campaign” launched by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Sharing the Chamber’s intense efforts in the last week, Bahçıvan provided information about the results of their enthusiastic contribution. “Through the efforts of our Chamber and members, we have managed to create 1,000 new jobs in 152 enterprises in a single week. I have no doubt that this figure will increase to expected levels in the days.”

Bahçıvan commented on the Chamber’s efforts in the campaign:

“We established an ‘Employment Campaign Support Desk’ within the Chamber. Our companies are able to contact this desk to receive information about export incentives and join the list of companies creating employment. Companies looking for employees are also able to apply, where they will receive support from our in-house İŞKUR occupational and professional consultant. We are collaborating with a variety of sectoral and regional associations and NGOs and organizing meetings to provide information about the employment campaign.”

After sharing information about the employment campaign, Bahçıvan also noted developments in Nefes Credit with the following remarks: “We have provided a significant support to the Nefes Credit launched by the Turkish Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges. We participated in the campaign by creating a credit pool of TL 75 million for use of ICI-member SMEs. Since then, 343 of our members used credits with a total value of TL 50 million.

Following Erdal Bahçıvan, Adnan Yıldırım, General Manager, Türk Eximbank took the stage to deliver his speech. Yıldırım noted that he began his term of office on November 28, and shared the important mission and responsibility that fell on his organization due to the conjuncture. Stating that Türk Eximbank, an organization that previously operated under the Ministry of State is now serving under the Ministry of Economy, Yıldırım added that the bank, founded in 1987, is now Türkiye’s 11th in terms of size out of the 52 banks operating from Türkiye.

Yıldırım also noted that as an export credit bank, Türk Eximbank ranked second after Southern Korea in terms of contribution to Türkiye’s exports with 23 percent, and works with 7,700 exporters. Yıldırım also shared that Türk Eximbank provided a significant portion of export credits. “We have 28 programs that cover the entire range of the export process, from its inception to post-sales, and even after,” Yıldırım said.

Individuals who own a company abroad also take policies for their receivables in that country according to Yıldırım, who added: “Another function of insurance is to act as a letter of guarantee and collateral for a credit.”

Yıldırım continued:

“Türk Eximbank is continuing its growth in 2017. Globally, export credits grew by an average of 9 percent, while we achieved a growth of 40 percent. We aim to raise our export support rates from 23 in 2016 to 26, and the volume to roughly $40 billion. Türk Eximbank managed to keep low interest rates in 2016, despite the various challenges that occurred during the year. Our costs increased, but we endeavored to keep yours the same.”

Following the speeches, Adnan Yıldırım received questions from ICI Assembly members.