THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
Related Articles
The agricultural futures market could launch in 2026…
Ali Kırali, General Manager of the Turkish Mercantile Exchange (TMEX – TÜRİB) stated that they have prepared the infrastructure for the futures market. “We aim to trade futures contracts based on electronic warehouse (commodity) receipts (EWR) and TMEX’s price indices in this market. We want to launch this in the third quarter of 2026,” Kırali said.
Ali Kırali, General Manager of the Turkish Mercantile Exchange (TMEX – TÜRİB), assessed TMEX’s activities at a press conference organized by the Turkish Guild of Agricultural Journalists (TGAJ – TAGYAD) to mark its sixth anniversary.
Kırali noted that 257 licensed warehouses across Türkiye serve the sector with a storage capacity of 14 million tonnes and he noted that TMEX switched to a intermediary (brokerage) system in January of this year.
Kırali reported that, following the transition to the intermediary (brokerage) system, transaction volume as of September had exceeded the 2024 total, reaching 90 billion liras. He explained that the average daily transaction volume, which was 267 million liras in 2024, had risen to an average of 500 million liras in the first nine months of this year, representing an 87 percent spike in daily transaction volume.
Kırali stated that Commodity Market Intermediary Institutions (CMII) have established operations in the first year and that these figures will boost even further next year.
Highlighting that they launched the first (mercantile) exchange software developed entirely with domestic resources in January of this year, Kırali noted,
“We are also developing the infrastructure for the futures market ourselves. Our goal is to enable trading of futures contracts based on electronic warehouse receipts and TMEX’s price indices in this market. We aim to launch this in the third quarter of 2026. This will be a significant step for Türkiye. We also aim to open the international product market. Both legislative and infrastructure work is ongoing. The TMEX R&D Centre is also conducting work on the trading of products on the International Product Market, which will be established and operated by our Exchange. We aim to launch the market in 2026.”
Underlining that the infrastructure work for the participation financing based tawarruq (teverruk) market is nearing completion and that tax regulations on this issue are awaited, he said, “Once this issue is resolved, we will also bring the international fund market to Türkiye.”
Kırali stated that they want to use this storage method for some of the products that are difficult to produce and where waste is high and therefore, he stated that incentives for licensed warehouses should continue.
Emphasizing that food supply security has become a critical issue for future generations, he concluded, “Optimally storing agricultural products, ensuring transparent market prices and also ensuring farmers have access to financing are of crucial importance.”
