A general assembly election of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK), which has been operating to boost foreign economic relations for the Turkish business world for 32 years with a total of 143 business councils, was held on Thursday in Istanbul with Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci in attendance.

At the DEİK Business Council's Ordinary General Assembly biyearly meeting, new presidents and administrators were elected for 66 of the 142 business councils and 1,120 representatives participated in the meeting.

During his closing speech, DEİK Chairman Nail Olpak said DEİK has undertaken an important platform in the business world and that it receives strength from the business councils and its members.

Olpak said DEİK aims to increase its members from 3,000 to 5,000, emphasizing that the transition process from regionally based membership to country based membership was complete.

"Every business council will determine its own dues and budget and will use them for its own purposes. The business councils that do not have enough members will be taken into common groups. Our aim is not to have any ungrouped business councils," he said.

Addressing the representatives during his closing speech, Zeybekci recalled that the change in DEİK was done to ensure that the link between the private sector and the government's foreign policies is strong and run in parallel.

Recalling that economic interests depend on changing external relations in the world, Zeybekci said Turkey has embassies in critical points around the world and explained that the number of business councils has been equalized with the number of embassies.

Zeybekci also called on DEİK members to assume the roles of Turkish missionaries abroad and announced that DEİK board meetings will be attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. He stressed that full-scale efforts must be mobilized to increase exports to above $170 billion.

The economy minister emphasized that all of the demands and requests that have been submitted to the government by exporters so far have been responded to and that the resources necessary for Turkey to develop through its own equity will be provided by exports. Reassuring that the government will continue to support exports, he announced that Turkey's export credit bank, Eximbank, aims to provide $50 billion in loans to exporters.