The Turkish Mercantile Exchange (TMEX) Electronic Warehouse Receipt (EWR) Market has successfully completed its fifth year. During this five-year period, EWR trading volume increased 26-fold compared to the five years prior to TMEX, reaching TRY 209 billion. Established on 26 July 2019 to support the stable growth of the agricultural sector and the economy by bringing agricultural producers and consumers together on a centralized platform, the TMEX EWR Market has completed its fifth year while continuously providing transparent and secure services to farmers, traders, industrialists and investors.  EWRs facilitate and improve the trade of products stored within the licensed warehousing system, ensure that products are registered and traded on organized markets through the expansion of licensed warehouses, help prevent unregistered economic activity and enable farmers to access financing secured by EWRs.

• 231K REGISTERED INVESTORS

 In its fifth year of operation, the number of registered investors in the EWR Market increased eightfold. A total of 231,000 individuals, the majority of whom are farmers, registered with TMEX to conduct transactions. Although orders are currently submitted directly to TMEX by buyers and sellers prior to the launch of Commodity Market Intermediary Institutions (CMII), a significant increase in investor participation is expected following the activation of CMIIs in 2024.  Investor registrations for the TMEX EWR Trading Platform are carried out through 112 Commodity Exchanges acting as agencies. EWR transactions are executed through investor accounts held at 25 banks and intermediary institutions integrated into the TMEX Trading System, in cooperation with the Central Securities Depository (MKK) and Istanbul Settlement and Custody Bank (Takasbank). During TMEX’s five-year operational period, trading volume exceeded TRY 209.2 billion, transaction volume surpassed 43.3 million tons and the number of transactions exceeded 1.1 million. Transactions were conducted in all EWRs related to the 17 products available for trading on TMEX, particularly wheat, corn, barley and sunflower. The first EWR issuances for canola and cheese, which were recently added to the licensed warehousing product range, are expected to take place in 2024. The Turkish Grain Board (TMO) continues to actively conduct EWR purchase and sale transactions through TMEX for strategic products within its mandate, carrying out both negotiated transactions and continuous auction transactions.

• LICENSED WAREHOUSES: THE GUARANTEE OF FOOD SUPPLY SECURITY

Products underlying EWRs traded on TMEX are safely stored in licensed warehouses equipped with modern technology, ensuring that losses and waste are kept to a minimum. In the fifth year following TMEX’s launch, licensed warehouse storage capacity increased by more than 2.8 times, reaching 11.2 million tons. The number of licensed warehouse operators rose to 209, providing services across 47 provinces, 144 districts and 287 different locations. In the medium term, storage capacity is expected to increase to 16 million tons. This would enable approximately 39% of Türkiye’s grain harvest, estimated at 41 million tons, to be stored under healthy and secure conditions. 

• TMEX R&D CENTER IS TAKING NEW STEPS IN TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

At the TMEX R&D Center, approved by the Ministry of Industry and Technology on 23 March 2021, several projects are being carried out, including:

• TMEX Trading System (TÜRİS), developed as part of the TMEX Technological Transformation Project, aimed at transitioning the EWR Market to an intermediary-based system and establishing futures market infrastructure,
• An Artificial Intelligence-Supported Market Surveillance Platform designed for market monitoring,
• The development and calculation of TMEX Agricultural Product Indices along with new benchmark indicators, to enhance transparency in the agricultural sector and address data needs, and
• The dissemination of market data through data vendor companies.