EİB Prepares Young People for the Sector

Young People Getting Ready for the Sector with EİB Ege İhracatçı Birlikleri, which has been making intensive efforts for many years to take Turkey's annual exports, which have reached 254 billion dollars, to higher levels with trained personnel, has added a new link to its cooperation with İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education. Within the framework of the cooperation protocol signed between İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education and Ege İhracatçı Birlikleri, courses covering State Support for Exports and Domestic Processing Regime, provided by the Ministry of Commerce, were added to the curriculum in the 2023-2024 academic year. Prof. Dr. Derman Küçükaltan, Director of İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education, presented the activities of Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education and stated: "We are an institution that produces qualified mid-level personnel for sectors. We train our young people in accordance with sector expectations and with a practical focus. Our cooperation with EİB is very important for converting theoretical knowledge into reality. EİB and we included the state support course as a three-hour mandatory course in the second semester. Sectors know the market much better than we do, they are in the middle of practice. There will be very valuable contributions from EİB in our foreign trade and logistics program." he said.

Ege İhracatçı Birlikleri Deputy Secretary General İ. Cumhur İşbırakmaz stated: "Our ultimate goal is for the quality of the workforce to match what production and exports expect, and for foreign trade firms to be able to meet their need for qualified personnel.

For this, we are in close contact with both our ministries and our universities. While supporting our young people in internship processes and employment of graduating students, we offer scholarship opportunities to our successful students. At this point, we are providing opportunities for young people studying at İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education to gain professional skills by enabling them to intern at our Union and at exporting companies that are members of EİB." he said. İşbırakmaz said: "In the previous period, we had supported İzmir Foreign Trade Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, which was identified as a pilot school, by including in the curriculum foreign trade-related topics as well as English language education and Chinese as a second language. We have made significant progress in shaping curricula in line with the expectations of our exporters. Now, by adding a new link to our cooperation with İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education, we have included in the curriculum new topics related to state support. Within the framework of the cooperation protocol signed between İzmir Kavram Vocational School of Higher Education and our Union, in the 2023-2024 academic year we added to the curriculum courses covering State Support for Exports and Domestic Processing Regime provided by our Ministry of Commerce." he said. Cumhur İşbırakmaz said: "In these courses, topics such as preparing companies for exports and giving them competitive advantage in international markets, strengthening their design and institutional capacities, promoting, marketing and promoting their products abroad, branding and legislation on state support contributing to sustainable export growth, how companies will apply for these supports, and preparation of correct documentation will be explained to students by experts in the relevant departments of the secretariat itself. We have been working hard for many years to ensure that exporters benefit from state support at the maximum level. In 2022, we concluded 21,424 files and facilitated TRY 563 million in state support." he said. İşbırakmaz, explaining that approximately 40 percent of total exports are carried out under the Domestic Processing Regime, continued: "Knowledge of the legislation on the Domestic Processing Regime, which aims to provide exporters with competitive strength in world markets by procuring raw materials at world market prices, to develop our export markets, to diversify our export products, and to ensure sustainable export growth, will be explained with practical examples from obtaining the Domestic Processing Authorization certificate to closing procedures. We aim to meet the need for personnel with theoretical and practical knowledge on State Support and Domestic Processing Regime applications required by companies from all sectors." Cumhur İşbırakmaz concluded: "We have work on including vocational education in university programs in many sectors and on professional competence. We know that by strengthening vocational education and quickly developing human resources that the labor market needs will increase our value-added exports. We hope to take this important cooperation to higher levels in the coming period."