The Ministry of Internal Affairs (“Ministry “) prepared new additional circular regarding measures to combat COVID-19 for meetings (26/03/2020)

• April, May and June 2020 meetings of metropolitan, provincial, district, local administrative unions, and provincial general assemblies were postponed by the governorships and district governorships. In compulsory cases, the extraordinary meeting will be allowed if the necessary health measures are taken.

Amendment to the regulation on the procedures and principles to be employed in recruiting public institutions and organizations (26/03/2020)

• Employees who will be hired for cleaning services, security and protection services, maintenance and repair services to State Hospitals health practice and research centers in 2020, will be employed without need to enter an exam by way of raffle to be conducted by the notary public.

Statement by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (” EMRA”) (26/03/2020)

• President of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) Mustafa Yılmaz announced that there will be no increase in electricity prices in the second quarter of this year.

Statement by the Higher Education Board (26/03/2020)

• The Higher Education board decided to continue the 2020 spring education period with distance education, open education, and digital education.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (“Ministry “) prepared new additional circular regarding measures to combat COVID-19 at grocery stores (“Circular “) (26/03/2020)

• All grocery stores in all of the provinces and districts in Turkey will be open between the hours of 9 am – 9 pm.
• The maximum number of customers in a grocery store cannot exceed 10% of the size of the area. For instance, if a grocery store is 100 square meters, only 10 customers will be able to shop at the same time.
• All grocery stores must hang banners at the grocery stores’ entrance indicating the maximum number of customers that can shop at the same time and that customers must keep a distance of one-meter between one other.
• Grocery stores must take the necessary measures to comply with these restrictions; for instance, grocery stores cannot allow additional customers to enter the premises if the maximum number of customers are already present in the store, and grocery store workers will inform the customers waiting outside.

Statement by the Ministry of Industry and Technology (26/03/2020)

• Products to be used in the diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19, equipment for the improvement of environmental conditions, R&D projects that develop effective protective products for disease prevention, IT applications that can affect the direct or indirect consequences of the epidemic will be rapidly supported and projects that entrepreneurs and scientists will bring in this context. A special and fast support program that will allow it to be implemented as soon as possible, these calls will be open until 2 April and will be evaluated and terminated within a maximum of one week.
• The payments that SMEs should make to KOSGEB until June 30 have been postponed for 3 months, the number of maturities will not change, no legal interest will be applied, and up to 4 months for businesses that need to fulfil their obligations until 11 March under the project duration or entrepreneurship program. additional time will be given
• The firms benefiting from investment incentives, some of the loan interest or profit share used by the Ministry, and this rule was suspended for the companies that could not fulfil their obligations to the banks in this period with the new decision, and when the firms made their bank payments for this period, they can benefit from share support exactly,
• Delivery dates of all project reports that should be submitted to TÜBİTAK were postponed for up to 3 months and the application deadlines for calls and events have been extended.

Statement by the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning (26/03/2020)

The Minister of environment and urban planning announced that

• April and May installments of the owners of TOKI and Emlak Konut has been postponed.
• Auctions of the Treasury property to be held through closed or open bidding methods have been cancelled.

Statement by the Ministry of Commerce (26/03/2020)

• For goods whose authorization period is given by the customs administration within the scope of temporary import regime, processing regime under customs control, external processing regime or temporary export leave expiry date has been determined as 30.06.2020 and thus, there will be no sanctions due to non-compliance with deadlines.
• Requests for extension of the goods submitted to the customs administration regarding the waiting period until the goods are subject to a custom approved process and use can be evaluated as force majeure.
• Furthermore, Ministry of Commerce has been announced that no fines will be imposed for all transit time limits to ensure that the liabilities are not caused by their grievances.

Statement by the Ministry of Commerce (26/03/2020)

• Additional customs tax applied as 20% on disposable medical masks, 13% additional customs tax for respiratory devices such as ventilators, oxygen concentrators, customs tax currently applied as 10% in imports of bulk ethyl alcohol used in raw materials for cologne and disinfectant production has been abolished by the President's Decree.

Regulation on amending the regulation on the rights of air passengers (25/03/2020)

• In case of flight cancellations as of 5/2/2020, the airlines that execute or undertake the flight due to these cancellations are exempted from the provisions of articles 8, 9 and 10 until the end of two months after the flight bans are lifted.
• The passengers whose flight has been canceled have the right to ask for an open ticket or change the ticket to any date depending on the seat availability of the airlines. The passenger can get the return of the ticket from the airlines, which has been revealed but not used after two months that the flight bans are lifted.