Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said Monday Türkiye would prioritize exporters' access to financial resources as they have initiated a new era in their access to Türk Eximbank loans, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
"Türk Eximbank aims to address the financing challenges of companies engaged in value-added and high-tech exports by providing loans with different types of collateral, in addition to the letter of guarantee," he said.
The minister in his assessments to AA emphasized the importance they place on increasing high-value-added production and exports.
For the purpose of prioritizing exporters' access to finance they increased the capital of Turkish Eximbank by 49% to reach TL 20.6 billion ($720.5 million) in July he recalled.
Highlighting the initiation of a new era in exporters' access to these loans Şimşek stated that Türk Eximbank has taken an important step in its strategic transformation program, which aims to serve the country's export-oriented growth target and is prepared in line with international practices.
Türkiye's exports increased 7.4% year-over-year to $22.9 billion registering an all-time high for October, the Trade Ministry's data showed last week.
In the strategic transformation program, one of the main issues addressed by Türk Eximbank is the implementation of mechanisms that facilitate exporters' access to finance.
Şimşek stated that, especially when designing these mechanisms, they aim to prevent exporters, particularly those engaged in value-added and high-tech exports, from being unable to increase exports due to financial difficulties.
"In this regard, Türk Eximbank has completed its efforts to enable exporters to use credit with different types of collateral, in addition to the letter of guarantee, and has taken a significant step toward facilitating exporters' access to finance. Diversification of the collateral structure will enable our exporters to reduce the increased financing costs due to letter of guarantee commissions and, at the same time, make more effective use of credit limits in other banks," he explained.
In order to allow especially those engaged in value-added and high-tech exports to benefit more effectively from this practice, Şimşek expressed that there will be a prioritization of increased value-added exports and high creditworthy exporters in the implementation.
Furthermore, the minister mentioned that artificial intelligence-supported early warning models and credit monitoring mechanisms have been established to closely monitor and effectively manage additional risks that may arise from the diversification of the collateral structure.
"Thus, Türk Eximbank has implemented another international best practice. Within the scope of the strategic transformation program, it will continue to provide more support to Turkish exporters by increasing the speed and quality of the services it offers with new products and applications in the coming period," he said.