Turkey’s top business representative steps down from restructured foreign trade body

ISTANBUL

Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu’s decision came just before the DEİK’s first board meeting, which was scheduled for Sept. 28. AA Photo

Turkey’s top business representative Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu has announced his resignation from Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK), after the introduction of a series of changes in the institution’s structure, which puts it under the government’s control.

Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) Chairman Hisarcıklıoğlu, head of the DEİK, has said the TOBB board has decided for him to not take part in the board of the recently re-established organization.

“We will continue to give the necessary support to the new DEİK after today as well, as we have done until today,” Hisarcıklıoğlu wrote in his resignation letter sent to Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci.

DEİK, which was originally founded as an arm of the TOBB, was put under the control and surveillance of the Economy Ministry as a part of an omnibus law approved in Parliament on Sept. 10.

Hisarcıklıoğlu’s decision came just before the DEİK’s first board meeting, which was scheduled for Sept. 28.

With the new DEİK regulation, the economy minister was endowed with extensive authorities to select and remove the DEİK chairman, as well as determine the founding institutions.

The new law has been perceived as an open attempt to hand the foreign trade ropes over to the ministry, and the regulation confirmed the level of government intervention into an organization that was being controlled by the private sector.