The said project was started as a joint project of İstanbul Customs Consultancies Association as the leading association and, İzmir, Ankara, Mersin and Bursa provinces Customs Consultancy Associations and is being continued together with Ethics and Reputation Society. The main objective in the project is the prevention of corruption in custom operation, improving the reputation of customs agency and public service in customs, encouraging the responsible

business practices, encouraging transparent and accountable corporate governance and highlighting the importance of the law state. The said Project has been formed as “certified business coalition” as an example of long term collective action. The project was started on 26th of January, 2013, where 250 prominent corporations of the industry signed “Customs Consultancy Professional Ethical Standards and Ethical Code” in a ceremony honoured by

Ministry of Customs and Trade, Mr. HayatiYazıcı, and it is still ongoing

The project is an initiative being carried out by private sector but supported by Ministry of Customs and Trade and is continued with the purpose of encouraging the concept saying that “a honest and transparent customs consultancy service is safe, highly reputated and profitable”

The said project provides establishing a platform for making a coalition between various stakeholders in order perform reforms in local enterprises, enterprise unions and to establish high commercial ethical standards. It was mentioned that the reason of the said project for exerting effort in establishing a coalition comes from the idea that “collective” action would be much more efficient in finding out the corruption practices.

Customs Brokers Professional Ethics Standards

As Customs Brokers…

• In all our operation; we will abide by all applied national regulations, in particular Constitution of Republic of Turkey, and all international agreements and regulations, to which Republic of Turkey is a party.

• Reliability, objectivity and independence are the basic principles that guide us in all our business relationships.

• While taking care to protect the commercial interests and legal rights of the business owners, we also accept the protection of the public interest as our primary responsibility, and we manage our business with this awareness.

• While using our professional knowledge and skills, we take care to make decisions in accordance with our responsibilities such as effective use of national resources and environmental awareness.

• We take the necessary care to ensure that the statements we make and the reports we provide are truthful, and we present the relevant information in an accurate, understandable and timeful.

• We consider truth and transparency as our primary values ​​in all our business processes and relationships.

• We give importance to security of information, we do not share our customers’ private commercial information, and we do not allow them to be shared by our employees.

• We show maximum effort and care so that business ethics becomes the building block of our written corporate culture.

• We teach our managers and employees the awareness, rules and practices that will keep them away from conflicts of interest. we prohibit and supervise them to obtain personal benefits by taking advantage of their current duties.

• We implement representation events (celebrations, catering, entertainment) as determined by our laws, by-laws and ethical code. We prohibit our employees from receiving gifts that will affect their impartial decisions and behaviors, and from giving gifts for the same purpose.

• While carrying out our activities and transactions, We take an equal distance with all kinds of public institutions and organizations, administration, non-governmental organizations and political parties without any expectation of benefit.

• We do not engage in corruption in our transactions, we do not permit of.

• We do not engage in unfair competition, we observe the protection of fair competition and consumer rights, and we develop all our practices in this direction.

• We do not engage in unregistered employment; We observe employee health and safety and support fair employment.

• We work to increase social unity and social sensitivity; We act with the awareness of our social responsibilities and share this awareness with our entire business environment.

• We develop practices that will ensure that all these business ethics principles, understandings and practices are spread across all our spheres of influence, including our business partners and suppliers.