Bakan Bolat: Administrative fines worth 400 million liras in auto, real estate and other fields. Ikhlas Haber Ajansı.

Trade Minister Omer Bolat said they have taken into account many measures to combat the rise of overpricing and hoarding in various industries and to ensure a competitive, fair and stable market structure in these industries, and added: "In the framework of this program, we have imposed administrative fines worth more than 400 million liras as a result of the inspections we conducted in the automobile, real estate and other industries. "

With reference to the Plan and Budget Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT)

Minister Bolat provided information on the global and Turkish economy, the ministry's areas of work and budgetary goals, and gave a presentation on the activities of the ministry, the Antitrust Authority, the Helal Accreditation Office for 2022, the final financial report for 2022 and the budget for 2024.

Bolat, pointing to unfavorable developments in global markets, emphasized that Turkey continues to invest, produce, create jobs and export, saying: "As you know, our country, which showed the fastest growth rate in the last 50 years, grew by 11.4 percent in 2021 and showed strong performance compared to OECD countries, with exports of goods and services contributing 5.3 percent to the growth. Our country continues its strong growth with a 5.5% growth rate in 2022. About half of this growth was driven by exports of goods and services, and exports continue to be the driving force behind growth. "

Bolat also recalled that Turkey's economy continues to show a continuous growth rate of 3.9 percent for the first quarter of 2023 and 3.8 percent for the second quarter, and said: "After the pandemic, our country is significantly different from the world countries in terms of growth performance, and this is due to exceeding the world's average increase in exports. "

Bolat said Turkey's exports totaled $187.2 billion in January-September 2023, matching the value of the previous year, despite the big earthquake, a decline in global production, a decrease in trade volume and a serious drop in the prices of commodities and raw materials. It is important to note the increase in the value of exports of medium and high-tech products, which rose from 36.9 per cent in 2022 to 40.3 per cent in the first nine months of this year.

Bolat emphasized that the main goals of the Trade Ministry are to sustainably increase exports, protect local producers from import pressure, improve the efficiency of customs, ensure stable and fair competition conditions in domestic trade, strengthen small and medium-sized businesses and protect consumer rights.

Bolat said they aim to increase Turkey's exports to $267 billion by 2024 under the Medium-Term Plan Target Program and the target is $302.2 billion by 2026. He added: "We have linked the Turkish brand to 200 countries/customs zones with the help of more than 114,000 exporters in 2022 with 12,747 different products and 12,559 different products in the first 9 months of 2023.

Bolat said they have imposed a ban on the actions of authorized car dealers such as avoiding sales, demanding a price higher than the list price and forcing the customer to buy accessories or exchange on their part, and they have imposed administrative fines worth 142 million liras.

He said: "We continue to scrutinize our work in the real estate industry to eliminate consumer deception caused by unjustified speculative price increases and restore a fair, competitive and stable market structure in the industry. In this regard, we imposed administrative fines amounting to 54.5 million liras on 545 real estate agencies that carry out unfair and unscrupulous price increases in real estate advertisements. According to their thorough inspections aimed at combating overpricing without sufficient justification, companies are fined 90 million liras in 2023. "

We hope that our call to reduce prices will contribute to minimizing inflation. "Bolat recalled that they called on private companies and firms to reduce prices on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, and added: "Almost all professional and non-professional organizations responded to our call after our President's appeal. Our call has been fulfilled in many sectors, from food to textiles, furniture, electronics, home appliances and cosmetics. We hope that these measures will help fight illegal price increases and reduce inflation, especially in the food sector. "

Bolat said more than 230 million liras worth of administrative fines have been imposed as a result of inspections conducted to protect consumers' health and safety and their economic interests, such as deceptive advertising, sale, price labeling, product safety and distance contracts.

The meeting of the GNST plan and budget commission continued with the presentation of the ministry's affiliated organizations.