SPEECH – BURHAN ÖZDEMİR

Participation Finance Guarantee Support Program Signing and Launch Ceremony

30 JANUARY 2026 – İSTANBUL FINANCIAL CENTER

Distinguished guests, Esteemed Members of the Press, Valued representatives of the business world,

On behalf of MÜSİAD, I greet you all with respect and affection.

Today we are all together witnessing a concrete response to a genuine need of the real sector, which we have brought to life under the leadership of MÜSİAD in cooperation with the Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF) and Ziraat Katılım Bankası. In this respect, I would particularly like to state that today's program is an important threshold both for our business world and for our country's economy.

As MÜSİAD, we had shared with the public that in the new term we would carry out intensive work centred on the fundamental issues that directly concern the business world. Financing, the investment climate, production capacity, the sustainability of employment and the resilience of the real sector emerge as the main headings of this period. And as you know, in the new-term program we announced we had devoted a broad space to these fundamental issues of both our members and the business world.

As the first month of 2026 draws to a close, we see that we are moving towards a more predictable, more balanced footing in economic policies. Determination in the fight against inflation, the preservation of fiscal discipline, and an investment- and production-oriented approach constitute the basic framework of the coming period. However, for this process to advance soundly, it is essential that the real sector stays on its feet, that production continues and that enterprises are able to breathe. This step we are taking today is the field counterpart of our cautious but hopeful expectations regarding 2026.

Esteemed Members of the Press,

In the economic assessments we carry out regularly every year with the business world as MÜSİAD, we are faced with a result that has not changed for a long time: the greatest structural problem of the business world is access to financing. In the assessment we made this year within the scope of the 2025 Year Review and 2026 Expectations, it likewise clearly emerged that the greatest problem is access to financing.

The access of our enterprises that produce, provide employment and create added value to participation financing opportunities on suitable terms carries greater importance today than ever before. We regarded this picture not merely as data but as an area of responsibility. With the reflex that comes from being a non-governmental organization representing the business world, we shared the voice, the demands and the needs of the real sector directly with our public institutions, we consulted with them and we worked together on paths to a solution.

The Participation Finance Guarantee Support Program, which we are introducing here today together with our esteemed Chairman and our esteemed General Manager, is precisely a concrete output of this consultation process. We believe that this cooperation, which we have led as MÜSİAD, will be a model that finds a response in the field and makes a direct contribution to the real sector on the basis of interest-free financing.

Esteemed Members of the Press, esteemed guests,

This program, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, is being implemented under the leadership of MÜSİAD in cooperation with the Credit Guarantee Fund and Ziraat Katılım Bankası A.Ş. I would like to underline this point in particular here: we position ourselves as the pioneering institution that correctly defines the need on behalf of the business world, brings the relevant parties together and sets the process in motion, and we contribute to making the financing and the guarantee provided by our stakeholders available to the real sector.

In the first tranche within the scope of the program, it is targeted to provide TRY 7.5 billion of KGF guarantee and TRY 9.375 billion of funding by Ziraat Katılım Bankası.

Together with the second tranche, we are speaking of a total field of impact of approximately TRY 15 billion.

This structure creates a strong room for manoeuvre for all companies and enterprises in the real sector.

Distinguished Guests,

I want one point here to be known in definite terms: this program is not directed only at MÜSİAD members. Although the Participation Finance Guarantee Support Program has been brought to life under the leadership of MÜSİAD, it is open to all eligible enterprises operating in the real sector, whether or not they are MÜSİAD members.

This program is directed at the entire market, at every enterprise that produces, provides employment and creates added value. In this respect, the program offers a funding opportunity that spreads across the market as a whole and is based on access to interest-free financing.

Another important feature of the program is its scope. The financing to be provided may be used for working capital needs as well as for investment financing needs. In this respect, in cooperation with our esteemed institutions, we have brought into the system a new financing instrument based on interest-free principles that responds to the real cash flow needs of the real sector.

Esteemed Members of the Press,

This model, brought to life with MÜSİAD as a non-governmental organization representing the business world, also sets an example by being the first of its kind. And we, as MÜSİAD, will continue to stand by production, by employment and by the real sector, to make the voice of the business world heard strongly and to be part of the solution.

In the realization of this process, I extend my gratitude first and foremost to our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to our Vice President Mr. Cevdet Yılmaz, to our Minister of Treasury and Finance Mr. Mehmet Şimşek, to the Governor of our Central Bank Mr. Fatih Karahan, to the esteemed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Credit Guarantee Fund and to the esteemed General Manager of Ziraat Katılım Bankası, for acting together with the business world and for valuing the leadership of a non-governmental organization; and I hope that the Participation Finance Guarantee Support Program will prove auspicious for our country's economy, for our business world and for the entire real sector.

I thank you all for your participation and offer you my respects.