Murat YAPICI
Former Director General, Ministry of Trade
Former Chief Negotiator
36 Years of knowledge and experience in the fields of international trade and investment policies and anti-dumping, subsidy and safeguard measures gained as decision maker and investigator
Murat YAPICI (1964) served as Director General for EU Relations at the Ministry of Trade for many years. He was in charge of EU membership issues, Customs Union and Free Trade Agreements and was the Chief Negotiator for the Customs Union and numerous Free Trade Agreement negotiations including Japan and UK.
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He also assumed charge as Director General of Imports (acting) managing all Import Regime and Trade Policy Measures and Director General for Agreements overseeing all international economic relations including WTO.
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He served as Chief Commercial Counsellor at the Turkish Embassy in Tokyo (2 times) and London.
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He started his career in 1986 as Foreign Trade Expert at Undersecretariat of Treasury and Foreign Trade then. He worked as Expert (investigator) at the Dumping and Subsidy Investigations Department since its establishment. He was promoted to positions of Chief of Section, Head of Department there and then Deputy Director General of Imports responsible for Trade Defence Instruments Measures.
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He has experience in areas of WTO, EU, USA, UK, Japan, import, export and industrial policies, anti-dumping/subsidy and safeguard measures, investment incentives, trade and investment promotion, bilateral, regional and multilateral trade relations and negotiations. He contributed significantly to the drafting the Legislation on the Prevention of Unfair Competition in Imports and the establishment of investigation system including margin calculation, injury evaluation and on-site verification. He has carried out more than 100 investigations. He has defended Turkish exporters in the investigations opened against Türkiye. He was the head of the Turkish delegation as a plaintiff in the panel initiated at the WTO for the anti-dumping duty imposed by Egypt on Turkish steel bars. He represented Türkiye in the WTO Anti-Dumping Committee and Rules Negotiation Group. He is also registered as a Panelist for WTO Dispute Settlement cases.
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He has written his master thesis regarding “WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement”. His dissertation as Foreign Trade Expert at the Ministry was on “Safeguard Legislation of the EU” which was the first study in Türkiye then.
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He gave undergraduate and graduate courses on TR-EU economic relations at Ankara University and lectures on international trade, globalization and EU at European Union Research Center, where he was on the Board of Directors in the past. He also lectured on Trade Policy Measures in various settings.​ He was invited as guest speaker by WTO to make presentation on “Türkiye’s anti-dumping experience” in conference organized in Kazakhstan for the countries in the region.
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He has a MBA degree from Ankara University Political Science Faculty. He graduated from METU Petroleum Engineering and completed his master degree at the same university. He did postgraduate studies in the field of international economic relations at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
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He is fluent in Japanese and English.