Trade Minister Bolat: This year we seized 19.1 billion lire worth of smuggled goods

Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, in his presentation on the 2024 budgets of his ministry and its affiliates at the Planning and Budget Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, said that as of October 27 this year, smuggled goods worth 19 billion 100 million lire.

Minister Bolat stated that customs have also been digitalized and modernized, and the modernization of the Edirne-Pazarkule and Ardahan-Posof-Türkgözü customs gates has been completed, and the modernization of the Ağrı-Doğubayazıt-Gürbulak customs gates continues. and Şanlıurfa-Ceylanpınar.

Bolat made the following statements in his statement regarding the contraband goods seized at the customs gates:

“Customs processes have also become electronic, thanks to the BİLGE Customs Platform. Here our Smuggling and Customs Control unit carries out an intense fight, especially in the fight against smuggling. As of October 27 this year, we have seized smuggled goods worth 19 billion lira. “Of these, 3.6 billion lire, approximately 8.8 tons, go to drugs.”

Bolat, who also shared information on export and import declarations, said: “In the 9 months of this year, transactions were carried out in the scope of 2.3 million import declarations and 3.6 million export declarations” . saying.

“234 THOUSAND PRODUCTS WERE INSPECTED ON IMPORTATION”

Bolat stated that with the application of the Foreign Trade Risk-Based Control System (TAREKS), customs inspections were carried out to prevent harmful and unhealthy products from reaching Turkey, and said: “In this context, 234 thousand products were inspected in at the time of importation. and an administrative fine of 424 million lire was imposed.”

Bolat stated that since October 15, administrative fines worth more than 230 million lire have been imposed during inspections carried out in numerous areas related to the protection of consumer health and safety, the fight against misleading advertising, price tags and security of products and distance contracts. .

Bolat stated that inspections were carried out in 44,927 companies in relation to differences between shelf and checkout prices: “In this context, an administrative fine of 27 million lire was imposed. “516,000 applications were concluded before consumer arbitration committees and disputes worth 2.7 billion lira were resolved,” he said.

Bolat also stated that within the scope of trade policy measures, measures were taken against 126 dumping and subsidies in 64 product groups, originating from 23 countries.

Minister Bolat said that in the January-September period of this year, 54.3 billion dollars of products to which these anti-dumping measures and additional customs duties were applied were imported.

Bolat stated that the volume of e-commerce in Turkey in the first six months of this year increased by 110 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching 652 billion lira, and said: “Significant changes were made in the Electronic Commerce Regulation Law Commerce in July 2022. The goal here is to establish a multi-actor market structure by avoiding monopolization through activities that disrupt and limit competition. “Our work will continue,” said.

9,761 COMPANIES AND 44,802 PRODUCTS WERE INSPECTED

Bolat stated that they have recently made significant efforts to combat exorbitant price increases and hoarding and stated that they imposed administrative fines of more than 400 million lira as a result of the inspections they carried out in the automotive, real estate and other sectors.

Bolat stated that efforts continue to eliminate consumer complaints arising from speculative price increases in the real estate sector, far from the reality of the market.

Recalling that today the application of the advertising ban began, which was introduced to prevent the formation of speculative prices with false advertisements in the real estate sector and in the sale of used vehicles, Bolat said:

“Our market surveillance and control activities continue in 81 provinces against exorbitant price increases that are not justified. In this context, in 2023, 9,761 companies and 44,802 products were inspected. “So far a fine of 90 million lire has been imposed on companies detected by the Unfair Price Evaluation Board.”

Minister Bolat noted that they prepared the budget for 2024 with the focus of “fighting the informal economy”, “regulating, developing and facilitating trade” and “consumer protection, security and standardization of products and services.” (AA)