Albayrak: Turkey to prioritize localizing its economy amid pandemic

Turkey is set to enter a new period in which domestic production will be prioritized, said the country’s treasury and finance minister on Wednesday.

In fact, Turkey imposed an additional tariff of up to 30% on imports of more than 800 items including work and agriculture machinery, a statement on the Official Gazette showed on Wednesday following last week’s, additional tariffs on dozens of goods including dishwashers, freezers, jewellery, musical instruments and sanitary products.

“We will further protect and support all of our industrialists who take responsibility for domestic production,” Berat Albayrak said in a virtual meeting with top Turkish business officials.

He said that the government will implement its long-term, Turkish lira-based and low-cost financing programs even more effectively along with the falling interest rates in the coming period.

One of the issues that has been brought by the virus-driven economic crisis is the importance of digitalization and the use of digital technologies.

“In order to turn this situation into opportunity immediately, we consider it important for our businesses of all scales to complete their digital transformation in all processes from design to production, from marketing to logistic,” Albayrak said.

“We will evaluate this process well in terms of speeding up the localization steps, especially in the production of medium-high and high-tech products and intermediate goods in Turkey,” he stressed.

He also said in the new period importing will no longer be as easy as it was before, adding Turkey will not import goods from abroad except for strategic goods.