Our Exporters Now Have A Bank and It's Time For Foreign Currency
As we leave the first five months of the year behind, I want to state that although our export volume drew a similar graph to the previous year, it remained below our target. Although the slowdown in global trade and the stagnation in EU countries, our biggest export market, had a negative impact on our exports, the most crucial reason for our target to fall behind is the loss of competitiveness of Türkiye exporters due to the exchange rate. The two most significant difficulties our exporters face today are; We stand out as the inability to meet prices and access to finance.
Our Assembly took an important step on its 30th anniversary to overcome the financing problems experienced by our exporters. The highest bid in the tender of Turkish Commercial Bank, Türkiye's first private bank with national capital, was the Export Development (İGE) A.Ş., which we established a year and a half ago. By obtaining the necessary official tender approvals, we became a bank that looks after the interests of the producer and exporter and will include exporters in its management.
We have thus crowned the 30th anniversary of our Türkiye Exporters Assembly, which has played a leading role in Türkiye's rise in production and exports since the day it was founded with a bank.
By transforming HDI into a finance group, we will start a new era in export financing. Türk Ticaret Bankası will conduct a specialized banking activity focused on exports and exporters in the new period. Most importantly, there will be a management approach shaped by the comments and demands from the production area.
We express on every platform that the exchange rate should increase at the inflation rate to increase our exports in the shrinking global market. Our exporters travel from country to country weekly to find new customers worldwide. Pricing is the biggest problem at the point of order taking due to exchange rate levels. We started to experience losses in some markets we could enter with great effort. However, we cannot bear to lose the market.
On the contrary, we should be able to show the flag in new markets with steps that will increase our competitiveness. Foreign trade data clearly indicates that the current exchange rate policy has increased imports. In the first five months of the year, the foreign trade deficit increased by 29.5 percent and exceeded 56 billion dollars. While the ratio of exports to imports was 70.3 percent in the same period of last year, it decreased to 64.6 in the first 5 months of this year. At a time when the country needs more foreign currency, we have no choice but to export more. We can also do this with the right exchange rate.
Our exporter has all kinds of technical possibilities and excitement to be able to produce and sell more. All they need is a currency policy to convert their labor into sales.
With the completion of the elections, the atmosphere of uncertainty ended. Now is the time to focus on our work with all our energy. We are even more hopeful for the new era. With an economic policy prioritizing production and exports, we will complete the 100th anniversary of the establishment of our Republic with record exports.