Dear Shareholders,
Turkey's leading flour producer Ulusoy Un continues to expand its operational geography with the power of support from you, our valuable investors. With our production facility that we purchased in Hatay Antakya, we will increase our capacity to 4,200 tons/day and we will have the opportunity to supply products to the regions in the south of our country at a more affordable cost. We believe that this investment will further strengthen Ulusoy Un's dominance in the domestic market. In the first quarter of 2023, our sales revenue reached TL 5.6 billion, increasing by 29% compared to the same period of the previous year. In the same period, our equity increased from TL 1.4 billion to TL 3.8 billion. Our company continues to increase its equity level in real terms with its investments and activities.
In the period we are going through, we see that the balances in the world grain market are very volatile due to the Russia-Ukraine war that broke out in our region. The grain corridor agreement, which was made under the leadership of Turkey, brought more than 30 million tons of grain out of Ukraine through the corridor channel as of May 2023, and gave a breath of fresh air to the world grain markets. There are question marks about the continuation of the grain corridor in the upcoming period. However, with the effect of increasing rainfall, we expect Turkey's upcoming harvest to result in a production higher than last year. Thanks to both the practices of TMO and the strong licensed warehousing infrastructure in our country, we felt less war-induced price fluctuations compared to the world markets.
In addition, we did not have to worry about not being able to access the product even for a day. In this process, we once again fulfilled our role in food safety by keeping the products on behalf of all depositors, especially TMO, in the 169,000-ton warehouses of our licensed warehousing company Ulidaş, and then shipping them to the market. On November 23, 2022, we bid farewell to our founder and honorary President, my precious Father Fahrettin Ulusoy. Under his leadership, Ulusoy Un transformed from a small grain shop into a global company. We will continue to walk on the path he opened, without compromising the values he taught us, with the same determination. I remember him with gratitude and gratitude for the great value he left us, may his soul rest in peace. As Ulusoy Group, we will ensure access to food by doing our part in the supply chain in the best way possible by standing by our nation and all the people of the world in the next process, as we have done so far. I would like to thank our esteemed investors, all stakeholders and employees who have not spared their faith and support in us throughout this process.