107th General Administrative Board Meeting - 22 September 2023

Esteemed members of our MÜSİAD, valued representatives of our business world,

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I greet you all with respect, affection and reverence.

Welcome to MÜSİAD’s 107th General Administrative Board Meeting; you have honoured us with your presence…

Esteemed guests, dear MÜSİAD Family,

MÜSİAD, whose very name has become almost identified with the sweat of the brow, set out in 1990 with the goal of opening Anatolia’s strength to the world and strengthening local development. From that day to this, it continues its march for the cause of civilization.

Just as in the famous analogy of Mevlana, we as MÜSİAD are like the legs of a compass: while one of our legs is firmly bound to the soil of Anatolia, the other continues on its way at all times in all four corners of the world, with a vision of a business world rising on the foundation of virtue, high morality and trust.

In this important cause of civilization that it pursues, MÜSİAD has stood by the one who is in the right, the one who labours, the one who strives. God willing, we will continue to carry this cause of civilization, which today reaches all four corners of Anatolia and indeed of the world, to ever greater heights.

Dear friends,

For us, connection begins in the heart… What binds people to one another are ideas, feelings and beliefs. MÜSİAD, too, was built first and foremost upon this principle. In other words, it is a civil society organization that works on the principle of volunteering.

We have left behind 33 full years with our members who joined us by grasping the meaning of the principles and aims we have described and by believing that MÜSİAD represents these values. God willing, we will continue on our way for many more years.

On this occasion, I thank everyone who has supported us and laboured on this journey, from our founding president to the newest member to join the MÜSİAD Family, and I pray for God’s (Almighty) mercy upon those who have passed away.

Most esteemed MÜSİAD Family,

The spirit of MÜSİAD is such a spirit that, while every new member of ours comes with abundance and blessing, every new branch and contact point we open carries us one step further forward in the cause of civilization.

With our International Business Forums, our Visionary meetings, our fairs, the awards we present, the sectoral meetings we hold, and the international business summits and organizations we arrange, we strive to sustain our understanding of the Medina Market and our cause of civilization.

We carry this spirit and this consciousness to the whole world through our commercial diplomacy activities, and to our aggrieved, migrant and oppressed brothers and sisters through our humanitarian diplomacy work.

Dear members of MÜSİAD,

As business people and people of commerce, we are filled with the effort and the passion to carry our country economically to greater heights alongside lawful earnings.

Praise be to God, as MÜSİAD we have to this day put our signature to many fine works in the sense of providing employment and increasing investment.

By launching the Anatolian Production and Investment Movement, we declared 2023 the “Year of Investment” in line with our country’s “Centenary” goals. Within this framework we established the “MÜSİAD Trade Office” and “MÜSİAD Invest”. In order to create global and major brands we joined our forces and established the Venture Capital Investment Fund.

By attending the meetings of the Coordination Council for the Improvement of the Investment Environment on a regular basis, we have shared and continue to share our MÜSİAD’s views on the economy with our government.

We are focusing more and more each day on the subjects of technology and digitalization, which are indispensable for investment and value-added production, and we are striving to increase our investments in these fields.

What is more, we attach great importance to the European Green Deal and to the issues of climate change for the sake of our future and the future of our children, and we carry out work to inform our members on these subjects.

In addition, as MÜSİAD we have for years been putting our signature to intellectual work in the field of the economy as well. With our SAMEKS index, which we have been publishing with great care for 10 years, with our sectoral research reports, with our academic publications and with our Çerçeve magazine, which we have been publishing for years, we put forward important ideas that offer various proposals to decision makers in the field of the economy.

Dear MÜSİAD Family,

Over the course of 33 years, without compromising our principles, we have both increased our activities and expanded our organization. As of today, praise be to God, we are the most widely organized civil society organization in Türkiye.

Today MÜSİAD continues its successful work with great determination with its 13 thousand members at its 84 points within Türkiye. Furthermore, we serve our members in a total of 81 countries, from the east of the world to the west, through our liaison offices spread over exactly 169 points with a global network. God willing, we will carry this number to greater heights in the periods ahead.

MÜSİAD is the result of a return to the essence and of the desire to seek out one’s roots. The founding of MÜSİAD is the sprouting and taking root of the understanding of the Medina Market in these lands.

My dear MÜSİAD Family, My Brothers and Sisters;

We will work together, we will develop together and we will all win together.

Because MÜSİAD means being one, being united and being together.

I greet with respect and reverence all the business people who contribute to our MÜSİAD with their efforts, their labour and the sweat of their brow, and who provide added value to our country’s economy…

May God protect you.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD