‘’According to the housing sales statistics of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) for July, housing sales increased by 16.7 percent in July compared to the same period of the previous year and reached 109 thousand 548 units. Thus, the series of decline for 5 months came to an end. For the sector, we attach importance to the increase in housing sales again. We expect this increase to continue even more with the solution of access to credit problems. Unfortunately, banks have recently been having difficulty in providing housing loans. Either the credit limit is too low or the interest rate is too high. This situation is reflected in housing sales figures. We see that the decline in mortgaged house sales continued in July. Mortgaged house sales in Turkey decreased by 24.1 percent in July compared to the same month of the previous year and became 14 thousand 533. The share of mortgaged sales in total house sales was realized as 13.3 percent. In other words, only 13.3 out of every 100 houses sold were bought with credit. We demand a solution before this situation starts to harm our sector. We see that housing sales to foreigners have also continued to decline recently. We think that the increase in housing prices with the increase in construction material prices and the anti-foreigner sentiment are effective in this. However, it should not be forgotten that the housing sector is one of the leading foreign currency earning sectors. We are talking about a sector that provided a foreign currency inflow of approximately 10 billion dollars last year. We think that we should use this potential more accurately for our country. We also think that the new housing campaign announced by the Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz will make a significant contribution to our sector. We expect that loans with a maturity of 180 months and an interest rate of 1.20 percent will be made available for first-time homeowners.’’ Figen Akar Akar Construction Chairman of the Board of Directors