The Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MÜSİAD) Projects and Supports Working Group held, at the MÜSİAD Head Office and with the participation of the President of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development and Support Administration (KOSGEB), Prof. Dr. Cevahir Uzkurt, the “KOSGEB Supports Briefing Panel”.

The MÜSİAD Projects and Supports Working Group held, at the MÜSİAD Head Office and with the participation of KOSGEB President Prof. Dr. Cevahir Uzkurt, the “KOSGEB Supports Briefing Panel”.

60 Percent of Türkiye's Exports Come from SMEs

MÜSİAD Vice President İsrafil Kuralay stated that, according to TÜİK data, SMEs make up 99 percent of enterprises, and noted that SMEs account for 60 percent of Türkiye's exports.

Kuralay, who said that the incentives and supports provided to enterprises are money held in trust, commented: "These funds are extremely valuable trusts both for the one who receives them and for the one who provides them."

MÜSİAD Board of Directors Member Muhammet Ali Özeken, for his part, described the work they carry out so that MÜSİAD members can benefit effectively from the incentives.

KOSGEB President Prof. Dr. Cevahir Uzkurt, meanwhile, provided information on the supports made available to entrepreneurs.

Stating that there are a total of 3,480,821 enterprises in Türkiye, Uzkurt said that 3,470,491 of them, corresponding to 99.7 percent of this figure, are SMEs. Explaining that KOSGEB introduces support programs in line with the requirements of the times, updates existing programs and withdraws some programs from implementation, Uzkurt noted that they have recently focused on the industrial sector.

Stating that the supports provided to SMEs are designed "tailor-made", Uzkurt said:

"You cannot take an SME from one place to another under today's conditions by giving it TRY 50,000 or TRY 100,000. Of course, TRY 50,000-100,000 is good money for a new venture, but it is very difficult to move medium-scale and small-scale enterprises from one place to another with these amounts. You cannot create the momentum that will increase a company's exports, grow it and enable it to acquire a structure that produces technology. Therefore we said this: as KOSGEB, from now on, instead of pretending to support SMEs with small amounts of TRY 3 or TRY 5, or instead of supporting a greater number of SMEs by giving TRY 3 or TRY 5 each, let us correctly identify the SMEs that genuinely need support. Our approach is to provide as much support as the state ought to provide, in proportion to the need. Let us increase the amount of support. Let us change the way we provide it. At the end of the day, we have begun to act with the understanding that if I have invested TRY 3 million or TRY 5 million in a company, if I have provided investment and production support, then three or five years later we should see this amount provided by the public return to the economy as TRY 50 million or TRY 100 million."

"We Will Provide Support of Up to TRY 360,000 to Manufacturers"

Noting that the funds for which KOSGEB acts as intermediary do not come to Türkiye from the sky or from another country, Uzkurt said: "This money is collected from you and entrusted to us. We transfer it to certain places. While we say let us provide more support, on the other hand we are striving to provide supports in the right way by finding the right addresses. I can say that we, as bureaucrats and state officials, manage this trust correctly here."

Stating that KOSGEB has made a fundamental change in its entrepreneurship support programs, Uzkurt noted the following:

"We have put a new system into effect. Previously it was a program under which we gave everyone TRY 50,000 as a grant and TRY 100,000 as repayable support... That is, we gave it to a çiğköfte seller, to a restaurant owner, and to an entrepreneur wishing to manufacture in an organized industrial zone (OIZ) alike; now we have divided this in two. We said that there are 'Traditional Entrepreneurs' on the one hand, and on the other those we call 'Advanced Entrepreneurship', who wish to undertake ventures with a high level of technology and added value in the manufacturing industry. We will provide support of up to TRY 360,000 to manufacturers, and all of it will be a grant.

On the other side, we have removed the board and so forth for traditional entrepreneurs. We have removed the paperwork; we will provide them with support of up to TRY 50,000, and there we will look only at this: establishment support and performance at the end of the year... With this money, whether you pay off your debt or create employment, we will not question it. We will provide this money in this way solely on the basis of performance."

Stating that KOSGEB, too, had faults in the failure to support entrepreneurs soundly in the past, Uzkurt said that they used to request far too many documents. Uzkurt said: "You can tell people 'bring this too, bring that too'. At the end of the day, after a year of effort, we also hear this: 'Well, you cannot receive this support, your conditions do not qualify.' Therefore, by drowning people in bureaucracy and alienating them from the state, we are also destroying an understanding of support. We will provide supports with an understanding that is more orderly and more free of bureaucracy."

"We Have Designed a Support Program That Is Always Open"

Uzkurt said that every SME operating in certain categories, such as companies producing strategic products, companies producing project-based products and new entrepreneur firms, will have a credit limit at KOSGEB.

Uzkurt Provided the Following Information:

"Under a new project we are working on, each of the SMEs in certain categories will use from TRY 50,000 up to TRY 500,000 from the banks with which we have agreements. We cover from a base of 5 points up to 14 points of this... For example, did it create new employment, will it buy a new machine, will the machine be domestic... We award points according to these. In that way, by identifying the enterprises that serve our targets, we have designed a support program under which we cover interest of up to about 14 points, which can be used whenever desired, which is not based on calls for applications and which is always open.

Let us say a company received TRY 1 million in project support from us and bought machinery... It will also put in TRY 1 million itself. For TRY 500,000 of this, it will be able to obtain a long-term loan from a bank, the interest on which is covered by KOSGEB."

At the end of the opening speeches, Kuralay presented a plaque to Uzkurt.