2024 Annual Bulletin

TMEX EWR Market has recorded a trading value of 248,6 billion Turkish Liras since the commencement of its operations.

Turkish Mercantile Exchange (TMEX) launched its Electronic Warehouse Receipt (EWR) Market on July 26, 2019. In 2024, EWR Market reached a trading volume of 7,4 tons and a total trading value of 66,6 million Turkish Liras in more than 200 thousand EWR transactions. Since TMEX commenced operations, it has recorded more than 1,2 million EWR transactions, with over 239 thousand registered investors, a trading volume of 47,4 million tons and trading value of 248,6 billion Turkish Liras.

EWR is an electronic receipt that represents agricultural products stored in licensed warehouses and can only be traded in TMEX EWR Market. The market primarily trades grain such as barley, wheat, and corn. In addition to these products, 17 different EWR-exported products such as pistachios, legumes, hazelnuts, dried apricots, cotton, olives and oilseeds can be traded.

Licensed warehouses, where the products represented by EWRs are stored, are one of the fundamental elements of the mercantile exchange ecosystem. 225 licensed warehouses operate in 49 provinces, 144 districts and 306 different locations with a storage capacity of 12.2 million tons. The storage capacity, which was over 4 million tons when TMEX became operational, has tripled in five years. Licensed warehouses have reached a storage capacity of approximately 30% of Türkiye’s grain yield. In the medium term, this capacity is targeted to reach 18 million tons.

TMEX Agricultural Commodity Indices: The Pulse of Agriculture, the Compass for Farmers and Investors.

TMEX Agricultural Commodity Indices keep the pulse of the agricultural sector. With the introduction of barley, wheat, corn and grain price indices, which were first published on 14 July 2021, the main direction of the agricultural commodity market in Türkiye can be tracked.

TMEX Agricultural Commodity Indices can be used as a benchmark in financial instrument issuances. In this context, Türkiye’s first lease certificate (sukuk) issuance using the Wheat Bread Price Index, which is calculated based on EWR Market bread wheat, EWR transactions published by Borsa İstanbul, was realized by Development Investment Asset Leasing Co. Inc. on 15.02.2024. Tarfin Tarım was the fund user, Development Investment Bank of Türkiye was the financial advisor, Vakıf Katılım Bankası was the sales agent and ISFA Islamic Finance Consultancy also took part as the advisory committee.  While this step was recorded as an important innovation in financing sources for farmers, it also brought the second financial product in the Turkish financial market after the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) based on the Wheat Bread Price Index published by TMEX.

Our Exchange continues to fulfill its mission of creating an efficient trading platform that ensures fair and transparent price formation in the agricultural market, thereby playing a key role in shaping the agricultural ecosystem. The prices formed in our Exchange contribute to farmers’ access to financing, the stable growth and sustainability of the agricultural sector, and the development of financial instruments based on agricultural commodities, creating a solid foundation for transformation within the industry.

TMEX Research & Development Center: Inclusive and Innovative Solutions for the Financialization of Agricultural Sector and Access to Finance.

Within the scope of the TMEX Technological Transformation Project carried out by the TMEX R&D Center, the TMEX Transaction System, which is a domestic and national stock exchange solution in the agricultural market, was introduced to our country. This system, in which commodity market intermediary institutions (CMII) will intermediate transactions, will be launched in early 2025. The necessary legislative infrastructure was completed in 2024. Work to open futures contracts based on EWR and agricultural product price indices for trading on the TMEX platform gained momentum at the end of 2024 and is expected to be finalized in the last quarter of 2025.

To ensure that transactions in the TMEX EWR Market are conducted in an environment of trust, free competition, and stability, our Exchange carries out various market monitoring and surveillance activities to detect actions that cannot be reasonably explained on economic or financial grounds and that could disrupt the market trust, transparency, and stability. The Artificial Intelligence Supported Market Surveillance Project, supported by TUBITAK’s “1005-National New Ideas and Products Research Funding Program”, was successfully completed and the Algorithmic Detection and Monitoring Platform (ADMP) was integrated into the system. In 2025, efforts will be made to integrate into the futures market.