Ministry: No Israeli Company is Involved in the Production, Programming, or Import of Chips Used in UTTS
The Ministry of Treasury and Finance has stated that no Israeli company is involved in the production, programming, or import of chips used in the National Vehicle Identification System (UTTS).
Despite having provided information about the UTTS project multiple times, the ministry noted that some circles persistently raised unfounded claims. In this context, it emphasized the necessity of the following clarification:
“Due to irregular receipts and invoices in fuel sales, billions of lira in tax losses occur every year, and these losses continue to increase each year. Currently, plate information is manually entered into the new generation payment recording devices. Fuel sales are conducted with vehicle stickers distributed without verifying vehicle registration information in the existing vehicle identification systems. Consequently, tax losses arise from the improper reporting of sales made to vehicles not owned by the business.
In our country, annual fuel sales reach 995 billion lira. Irregular documentation in fuel sales will end with the implementation of UTTS, preventing manual plate entry, and tax losses will be mitigated.
An open competitive tender was conducted in November 2023 by the General Directorate of the Mint and Stamp Printing House in accordance with the Public Procurement Law for the implementation of the UTTS project, and the establishment and operation of UTTS was achieved in less than a year. Taxpayers operating fuel stations and commercial vehicle owners must complete the necessary application and registration processes on utts.gov.tr for the required equipment, including TTO, TTB, and other devices by January 31, 2025, and install or start using them by April 30, 2025, at the latest.
Over 1,500 authorized TTB installation firms and more than 4,000 trained technicians are rapidly continuing the installation of TTBs nationwide. As of today, 1.1 million TTBs have been ordered, and the number of fuel stations registered in UTTS is around 4,000.
Within the scope of UTTS, TTBs are programmed with domestic software by the General Directorate of the Mint and Stamp Printing House. All obtained data is stored in data centers located in Turkey. In addition to our General Directorate, three domestic firms have been authorized by the Mint to produce and sell fuel station equipment, ensuring the procurement and use of this equipment in a competitive environment.
The chips used in TTBs have been safely utilized by the Mint for years in the production of official documents such as Turkish Republic passports and identity cards. Furthermore, these chips are already present in various components of vehicles for different purposes.
In the framework of UTTS, chips manufactured by the Netherlands-based company NXP, which is traded on the NASDAQ, are purchased in blank form. All software and security components of the chips have been developed domestically and nationally using the knowledge and experience of the Mint. Contrary to misleading and deceptive claims, UTTS technology is being developed securely and 100% by Turkish engineers. An Israeli company is not involved in the production, programming, or import of chips used in the UTTS.
Despite these clarifications, we announce to the public that we will fully exercise our legal rights if the baseless claims raised deliberately continue."