New arrangements have been made in the Turquality program for support to be paid in Turkish lira and given on a country basis. An evaluation system has also been introduced to increase the effectiveness of the annual evaluation support.

The Turquality program, which includes support for the marketing of products with potential for branding abroad, will now provide supports in lira instead of dollars. The favored provisions of the previous communiqué will be applied for firms. While some articles of the 2006/4 Turquality communiqu have been abolished, the support periods to be allocated to the target countries have also changed.

The Economy Ministry issued an information note on the communiqu, stressing that a targeted country-based support approach has been adopted. It says that with the new arrangement, companies included in the Turquality program will be able to benefit from support for five years for each new country. This new understanding of five years of support per new country aims to encourage firms to work toward market diversification. Additionally, as long as companies open up to new countries, they will continue to stay in the program and benefit from support. The communiqu

é also introduced an annual evaluation system to increase the effectiveness of Turquality support. Companies with low performance will lose access to Turquality support.

According to the ministry's statement, with the amendment, items related to new activities were also included in the support program. The expenses for engineers to be employed in the field of product development, rental expenses for product display greenhouses, expenses related to storage services, renewal of trademark registration and licensing and clinical test expenses that are obligatory for entry into foreign markets, especially in line with the demands of the pharmaceutical sector, were included in the support program. With the communiqué, companies entering the Turquality program are also allowed to benefit from other Economy Ministry incentives. Companies in the program are now able to benefit from support such as from Turkish trade centers, domestic fair participation, financing support conducted in coordination with Eximbank and the International Competitiveness Development Incentive (UR-GE), global supply chain, trade delegation and acquisition of advanced-technology companies support.