Miller Magazine Issue 109 / January 2019

67 INTERVIEW MILLER / JANUARY 2019 the sector and examined these problems in the board of directors so that they communicate these problems to the public in a single and right way. You get effective results from these initiatives as a single body. Otherwise, if anyone tries to find a solution to his or her problem in his or her own way, they face with the risk of having serious information pollution and lack of contact. Thus, we should support NGOs. You have to spend significant hours and shoulder important responsibility when you assume duty at NGOs. When you solve a problem, it gi- ves incredible pleasure. In short, you shoulder important responsibility and are criticized often; however, when you solve a problem, you get happy. So far, I do my best when I assume duty at NGOs. After this, I will continue to do my best. You are active in creating strategies for wheat flour and wheat production. Can you share your thoughts about the problem of wheat and flour as a result of the fluctuation in the rate of exchange? This is the third time I have experienced in my twenty-eight years of business life in the flour sector. If I were to look into these days again, I can say the ex- change rate volatility in the 1994 and 2001 crises. The change in exchange rates in both years had made wheat prices in our country the cheapest in the world. In both, cereal export was banned. As the market recovered qu- ickly, the price of wheat had gone over the world price and everything went back to normal. This year, with the increase in exchange rates, the price of wheat was lower than the world’s prices. Later, the market adapted itself to this situation in both wheat exchange and flour pri- ces. In fact, there was no problem with finding wheat and flour. The most problematic situation was that the delay interest increased as the financing cost increased extremely. Also, because the sector cannot find finan- cing easily, terms got shortened. When we reflected this to customers, the issue has reflected the public from a different perspective. The price of bread and flour was a hot topic re- cently. The sector was blamed with opportunism and stockpiling. Can you tell us the real reasons and the background of this situation? As I told you, exchange rates in the market were ref- lected in the price of wheat. You can see price move- ments clearly by looking into releases of wheat exc- hanges in our country. The most important input of the flour sector at the rate of eighty-five and ninety percent is the price of wheat. So, the smallest increase in wheat is reflected in the price of flour. There is no way to escape from this. In addition, a flour factory has to have at least two months of product in its store in order to maintain its product standard. Although you name it stock for the product standard, these are also the undelivered wheat that was sold. So, it is not right to name this as stockpiling. I believe we were blamed unnecessarily and unjustly at that time. I do not think that no person deserved to hear these accusations in this sector. In short, this case saddened all of our frien- ds deeply. In the end, we determine the price of flour based on the price of wheat. The public authority de- termines the price of wheat. Later, the public authority announced that it would import through TMO and re- vealed the price of wheat below the world’s price, all markets acted accordingly. So, it is the public authority, not us that decide the price of wheat and flour. Moreover, our sector has more than fifty percent of idle capacity, and there is fierce competition. For example, when I began working in this sector, there were 1281 flour factories. Now it is around 400. This case shows the reality of the sector. Speaking of bread prices, in fact, there is no need to talk about this. Bread is not our business. Also, it is not right to talk about its price. However, I can express my opinion easily. No bakery has the same cost. Some are labor-intensify while others are machine-intensify. Some pay low rent while others pay high rent. It is not healthy to fix the price of this product having very different input cost. Also, it is clear that if every input cost of bakeries is changed and the price remains the same, this situation causes serious problems in time. The most important is- sue to keep in mind is that if workers that produce bread go to their bakeries happily, this will guarantee people have bread with better quality. Do you think Turkey’s leadership in the world flour export for years would hurt from problems in the do- mestic market? Of course, it will. This harm will reveal in the middle