IKMIB Chairman Adil Pelister Issues Statement

Statement from İKMİB Chairman Adil Pelister Istanbul Chemical Substances and Products Exporters Association (İKMİB) Board Chairman Adil Pelister issued a written assessment regarding the long-term Turkish lira credit financing at 9 percent interest announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for exporters and tourism sector firms. Pelister stated the following in his assessment: "The financing in Turkish lira to be provided at long-term with an interest rate as low as 9 percent announced by our President last evening for exporters and firms providing foreign currency-generating services in the tourism sector has been very good news for us exporters. Our exporters in the chemistry sector particularly had expectations regarding access to low-interest long-term financing. This will both open the way for new investments and provide relief to many of our companies that have faced increased capital and financing needs in recent times for various reasons. New investments are needed in our sector to reduce import dependency. As İKMİB, in 2019 we examined 103 chemical product groups to break the import dependency in our chemistry sector's raw material and semi-finished product needs and increase domestic and national production in our sector, and submitted our 'Turkish Chemistry Sector Investment Priority Products' report to our public administration and sector. We ensured that 98 of these product groups were included in our Ministry of Industry and Technology's 'Technology-Focused Industry Initiative Health and Chemistry Products Support Program'. Within this framework, calls were made for 421 product groups. The presence of such investment and export-supporting packages along with the Technology-Focused Industry Initiative is also gratifying for our sector. We consider this 9 percent interest credit support particularly important especially in an interest environment where rates have risen to 25 percent. Our President stated that a total of TRY 150 billion in resources has been allocated for these credits to be provided on a project financing basis with expenditure documentation and document-backed usage, of which TRY 100 billion is for exports and TRY 50 billion is for tourism. It was announced that this credit package will be provided to SMEs at a limit of TRY 250 million and to non-SME companies at TRY 1.5 billion with annual interest rates reaching 9 percent and a maturity of 3 to 10 years with 2 years grace period. Documentation is required to benefit from this credit package, but for this our manufacturing companies particularly need working capital. In addition to this package, we are expecting credit support for working capital at around 10 percent interest rate. We are very grateful to our President for this important support which is highly satisfactory for all our exporters, particularly our chemistry sector. We look forward to its swift implementation and our companies benefiting from this support." he said.