Aegean Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters' Association, which has been the export champion for 12 years among 5 exporters' unions within the body of Aegean Exporters' Association, reached its 2022 target of 1,9 billion dollars to 2022 billion 2 million dollars at the end of 564.
Aegean Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters' Association President Yalçın Ertan stated that they managed to increase their exports by 2021 percent compared to 15, and underlined that they are the only union under the EİB that has passed the 2 billion dollar export threshold.
Speaking at the ordinary financial general assembly meeting held at the Aegean Exporters' Associations, President Ertan said, "Green Reconciliation and Sustainability", which is of great importance for the iron-steel and non-ferrous metals sectors, which has come to the fore in the world agenda in recent years, in order to increase the competitiveness of the exporter companies that are members of the union. shared the knowledge that they made their subjects the focal point of their strategies.
Summarizing their work on Green Reconciliation and Sustainability, Ertan said, “We started a URGE project supported by our Ministry of Commerce with 15 companies from our sector. With our project, we are trying to support our participating companies with activities such as training, consultancy, overseas delegations and fair organizations. By visiting the Green Steel World fair held in Germany at the beginning of April, we had the opportunity to closely observe the latest developments in cleaner production and decarbonisation, which form the basis of our strategy.” said.
Ertan said, “We paid a review visit to Germany on industry 4.0 in order to keep our industry informed by following the developments about industry 4.0 and beyond, to observe good practice examples, to see the studies on green production and sustainability, and to examine how these practices can be adapted to our country. We plan to follow the current developments closely by making these visits a routine every year.”
Ertan said, “We became a member of the worldwide known Responsible Steel initiative in order to spread sustainability among companies in the steel, ferrous and non-ferrous metals sector and to support the transition to sustainable production”, adding, “We aim to certify companies that make clean production by meeting with our stakeholders from the same sector and discussing how to produce more responsibly. ” used the phrase.
“We are planning two sectoral trade delegations in 2023”
In order to contribute to the export of Aegean Iron and Non-Ferrous Mellar Exporters' Association, to discover new markets and to expand our export network; President Ertan, who shared with the members of the general assembly that they are working to realize trade delegation programs, informed that they will organize a Trade Delegation to Italy in May and to distant countries such as Morocco and Chile in the second half of 2023.
“Energy prices remained high in Turkey, our capacity utilization decreased”
Pointing out that raw material, energy, human resource costs and freights have been following a fluctuating course since the pandemic period, Aegean Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters' Association President Yalçın Ertan said, "Protective measures, dumping and subsidy cases, quota applications have also been a burden on our industry's shoulders for years. In particular, energy prices have greatly affected our industry and continue to do so. While our capacity utilization rate was in the 75-80 band last year, it decreased to 51 percent in the first quarter of this year. Energy prices prevent us from fixing prices in Europe, our biggest export market, with a share of 43 percent. If we do not adapt quickly and take our measures, the green agreement will greatly affect our industry in a few years, if not in a short time. I believe that we will overcome all the negativities that affect our country such as earthquakes, floods, economic fluctuations and inflation and we will reach good days.
Three issues prevent its exports from being competitive
Jak Eskinazi, Coordinator President of Aegean Exporters' Associations, who assumed the position of Chairman of the Council at the General Assembly of the Aegean Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters' Association, listed three issues that exporters await solutions.
Eskinazi underlined that the decrease in energy prices in the world has not been realized in Turkey and said, “In order to increase the competitiveness of our sector, the energy prices in the country must reach the prices in the world markets as soon as possible. We run the risk of losing customers in the markets, since we only gradually reduced the prices that fell last year in the world. If energy prices are suddenly reduced in our country, we will gain our competitiveness as soon as possible. A second issue is that our import-based export sectors suffer from the gap between buying and selling prices in exchange rates.” he said.
Eskinazi stated that they wanted the exchange rates to close the scissors in banks as soon as possible and said:
“The scissors, which are around 5-7 percent, completely eliminate our profitability. We also lose out-of-pocket money in the sector where we do not make a profit. In addition, we have difficulties in finding loans. We want these credit taps to be opened as soon as possible and the necessary government support for exports and the Central Bank-sourced loans to be given to exporters as soon as possible. There are many more problems to be counted, but I urgently wish that these three issues will be resolved as soon as possible and that all exporters of our sectors will be paved.”
At the financial general assembly meeting of the Aegean Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters' Association, the 2023 budget was determined as 40 million TL, and the 2023 work program was also decided.