Nations that cannot achieve their economic independence cannot be fully independent. These words belong to the founder of our republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. But before the national struggle had to be won to save the country. He said May 19 is my birthday. It is the day that the Turkish Nation started to rise from the ashes of 19 May. It is the first step in the war of independence against imperialism. So much so that the place where our ancestors set foot was named İlkadim district.
May 19 is not just the name of the day when the national struggle started. It is the day when the Turkish Nation's life and war began. The recitation of the adhan, the waving of the flag, the ability to speak our own language, to live the religion freely, is the name of the continuation of our generation and our honor. The Treaty of Lausanne, which started on May 19, 1919 and signed on July 24, 1923, fought against imperialism until the day when our independence was accepted by the world.
Atatürk knew that he could not be fully independent without getting rid of economic dependence. The name of the dependency in the economy was the big debts left from the Ottoman Empire. Look at this coincidence that Mustafa Kemal was born in 1881, the year when the Ottomans went bankrupt and left all their important revenues with the Common Hope.
42 years later, Ataturk ended this debtor and dependent order of the Ottoman Empire. The young republic was able to end these debts in 1954. During the struggle for independence, Ataturk made plans for economic development and future's Turkey. He laid the foundations of dozens of organizations such as factories, universities, banks, language and history institutions. This genius leader also fought against ignorance with the village institutes on which he laid his foundation. Regardless of the name, Public Debts, IMF, FED or McKinsey, they are no different.
The borrowing that started with Marshall aid signed on April 3, 1948 with the USA and continues increasingly is obvious today. Salvation is to establish an independent production-based order. It is necessary to celebrate May 19 with this in mind.
Increasing costs in foreign trade put a burden on the economy. The World Bank publishes the countries' logistics performance and ease of doing business index every year. In 2018, Turkey was ranked 47th among 160 countries in terms of performance. It ranked 43rd among 190 countries in the ease of doing business index. On the other hand, our rise continued in the 2020 list and we moved up to 33 places ten steps up. Rıza Mehmet Korkmaz, General Manager of ÜNSPED Customs Consultancy, who has worked as a consultant in the US for the increase of our foreign trade and general directorate at the Ministry of Customs and Trade for many years, and who still performs customs clearance transactions close to 10 percent of foreign trade, It answers our question by referring to the "Doing Business-Ease of Doing Business Index" organized by the World Bank. He says that; “By revealing the current situation in the fields of start of small and medium-sized enterprises in a country, obtaining construction permits, connecting electricity to new warehouses, registering real estate deeds, obtaining loans, and protecting small investors, paying taxes, cross-border trade, binding contracts, resolving bankruptcies, according to various criteria, surveys are conducted in 190 countries. Accordingly, Turkey outperformed countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy in the ease of doing business. Korkmaz draws attention to another issue in the index; “It is not possible to say that there is a good enough situation in practices and transactions in cross-border trade. Because our country was able to find 44th place in this field with 91.6 points by decreasing 2 steps according to the 2019 Index. Bulgaria ranked 21st with 97.4 points in the same ranking, Greece 34th with 93.7 points, while Romania ranked first with 100 full points. Stating that he made a series of decisions on the reduction of commercial costs included in the action plan, Korkmaz points out that the practices contradict the decisions in real life.
Reminding that many projects have been carried out in the customs administrations in the last 10 years, Korkmaz says that we have come to the 43rd rank since we have accomplished many works from authorized status application to Single Window System, from paperless declaration to digital applications. Korkmaz says that; “Due to inadequate control, unnecessary and exorbitant costs and costs occur in foreign trade transactions. Since collections made with fees, fees and similar names are not equivalent to the service provided, it significantly increases the costs of traders. The fact that the fees and prices received by the agencies are disproportionate with the services, even if the operating organizations reduce or even reset the fee tariffs, slows our trade while reducing our competitive power ”.
Loading and unloading according to the goods transportation contracts by sea, depending on the modes of transportation in the ports, the unloading costs at the destination port of the containers are paid by the buyer or included in the freight costs. Therefore, in a purchased item, all fees, including the evacuation of the item, are already paid by the buyer in most cases. However, in practice, when the importing company takes its bill of lading to the agency, the agencies want to pay for the expenses that are subsequently issued by the importer and exporter, under various names. Korkmaz lists the charges that agencies get outside the application under various names such as ordino or freight delivery charges as: “ISPS security fee is $ 12. The ship security service fee is $ 10. Container control fee is $ 10. The freight notification fee is $ 25. The temporary admission fee is $ 85. Documentation fee is $ 70. The evacuation fee is $ 165. Evacuation supervision fee is 77 dollars for 40 container. ”
Korkmaz, which reveals the damage caused to the Turkish economy by the fact that the expenses we have received from the importers and exporters and agencies without any fee tariff are high, also states that; “Considering that 7 million 482 thousand 588 containers were handled in 20 ports in Turkey in 2019, a cost reaching 1.5 billion dollars may arise even if it is considered as 200 dollars for each container. Although these costs differ from port to port, it should not be forgotten that it has reached the level of 500-600 dollars. In terms of export, we can say that in 2019, 2 million 896 thousand 688 containers created additional costs for exporters between about 600 million dollars and 1.6 billion dollars in export transactions. ”
Turkey's transboundary trade performance In the “transboundary trade” section of the index study, the costs of exports and imports in our country and the waiting times of transactions are measured in the evaluation made within the framework of documentation, border crossings and domestic transportation indicators.
● Average waiting time at the border is 10 hours for export transactions and 7 hours for import.
● The time required to complete documentation procedures for export is 4 hours, and for import is 2 hours
● While the average expenditure per container / TIR is 338 dollars for the transaction costs at the border in exports, 46 dollars in imports.
● While the expenditure on documents for export is 55 dollars on average, this amount is 55 dollars on import.
● Turkey showed the worst performance at this point with 68.1 points in terms of expenses spent on transactions made at the border for export. On the other hand, it shows the best performance with 99.6 points in the timely preparation of import documents.
What is the legal situation?
Rıza Mehmet Korkmaz, who has many years of experience as an inspector and bureaucracy, makes the following assessment:
“Unfortunately, these unfair and exorbitant gains created by making use of legal gaps created the lobby of this business over time. Indeed, we have seen that even some associations and non-governmental organizations have a role in this process. Therefore, the efforts of these lobbies to remove the issue from the agenda of the public authorities with their works; they must not fully adopt this issue in the mined area and enter the ball, if the directors of the relevant public institutions are in the idiom; the ignorance or insensitivity of the foreign trade clerk, who must pursue the issue and seek his right through all channels, including legal means, has in some sense set a dish on these unfair gains. Unfortunately, the voice of those who are trying to solve the issue in good faith was also weak. However, we believe that those who are right should sound louder. At this point, we are trying to be the voice of the victims, because their voices are low.”
Geri