Honourable Deputy Chairman of the AK Party,
Distinguished members of parliament,
Honourable Mayors,
The Esteemed Former Presidents of our MÜSİAD,
Distinguished presidents and representatives of our chambers, commodity exchanges and civil society organizations,
Esteemed MÜSİAD presidents and members of boards of directors,
Our distinguished members,
Honourable ladies and gentlemen,
Esteemed members of the press,
I greet you all with respect, affection and reverence.
Welcome to our 27th Ordinary General Assembly, you have honoured us with your presence…
As I begin my words, I remember with mercy and gratitude our members who have passed on to the hereafter, our brothers and sisters whom we lost in the earthquake disaster and our blessed martyrs.
I extend my gratitude to all of you, above all our Honourable Deputy Chairman, for honouring our general assembly with your presence.
Esteemed guests,
Thirty-three years ago, again around these days;
MÜSİAD, which sprouted with the coming together of 12 young people devoted to their homeland,
has today, praise be to God, become a vast international organization with more than 13,000 members and more than 165 contact points.
May God be pleased with everyone who has contributed.
MÜSİAD, founded on the principles of ‘high morality’ and ‘high technology’;
independent, ever hopeful, sincere, never abandoning its ideals,
honest, diligent, self-sacrificing; passionate about its homeland and its cause;
where business people who work with love come together;
is a deep-rooted civilization movement, a strong platform of cooperation and capital.
We;
together with our MÜSİAD family consisting of our board of directors, our High Advisory Council, our Young MÜSİAD, our MÜSİAD Women Presidency, our sector boards, our commissions, our domestic and international organizations and all our members,
have been working and producing with these principles and this spirit for 33 years for our nation, our country and our ideals.
The MÜSİAD flag, which we have had the honour of carrying for two years,
we are striving to raise higher with great seriousness, responsibility and sensitivity.
With the Ordinary General Assembly we shall hold today we will be renewed and strengthened,
and we will continue our march with the same love, excitement and determination.
Over the past two years
in addition to our international organizations such as the International Business Forums, Visionary 21, MÜSİAD EXPO, the Power of Türkiye Awards and the Turkish-Arab Business Summit, we held thematic summits on energy, agriculture, logistics, textiles, construction, defence, digital transformation and machinery.
By launching the Anatolian Production and Investment Movement, we declared 2023 the “Year of Investment” in line with our country's “Centennial” goals.
Within this framework we established and brought to life the “MÜSİAD Trade Office” and
“MÜSİAD Invest”, an “International Investment Support Office”.
We joined our forces in order to produce global and major brands and established the Venture Capital Investment Fund.
We have to a great extent realized our goal of establishing MÜSİAD offices in all of the G20 countries.
In addition, we continued our business trips without interruption within the scope of commercial diplomacy activities.
Within the framework of our humanitarian diplomacy work, we organized humanitarian aid campaigns for Syria and Afghanistan.
By completing the MÜSİAD Village consisting of 600 briquette houses in Idlib, Syria, we met the shelter needs of 4,000 people who were victims of war.
With the “Orphan Sponsorship Project” we supported hundreds of orphaned children.
Deeply saddening us all, occurring with the Kahramanmaraş-centred earthquakes,
we supported with all our strength from the very first day the mobilization of aid and solidarity that began after the ‘disaster of the century’.
We mobilized all the units, branches and members of our MÜSİAD, which draws on the wisdom of Anatolia, to serve our aggrieved people.
We dispatched aid materials consisting of thousands of trucks to the region.
In Elbistan, in cooperation with İHH, we completed a container city of 1,200 units, and in Defne, Hatay, we built a field hospital serving 150 people a day.
And now we are establishing a new city of 500 containers in Adıyaman.
We are constantly designing and bringing to life new campaigns and new projects so that the region's economy may get back on its feet.
We keep alive our time-honoured practices such as Qard al-Hasan, which means lending to our businessmen in need without interest, for the sake of God, and with our member matching system we make it easier for our earthquake-stricken business people to be included in commercial life once again.
Praise be to God, working as one and together with our state and our nation, we are healing our wounds.
God willing, our work directed at the earthquake region will continue with determination until results are obtained.
We will emerge from this great disaster having grown even bigger, healed and stronger, God willing
Honourable Deputy Chairman,
Esteemed guests,
During the epidemic period Türkiye once again showed how reliable a supplier it is.
Thanks to its wide product range, its dynamic real sector, its geographical advantages and its renewed infrastructure, it made good use of the opportunity that arose during the epidemic period and launched a new process of breakthrough in industry.
The share of industry in national income, which was at the level of 23 percent before the epidemic, has risen to 27 percent. Despite all internal and external shocks, our country has managed to preserve its positive trend in industry. Compared with the period before the epidemic, an increase of 4 million in total employment and a decrease of 3 points in the unemployment rate have been experienced.
The April purchasing managers' index — the SAMEKS Composite Index — which we announced only 2 days ago, reached its highest level of the last 11 months at 56.3 points and pointed to a highly important performance for the real sector.
Thanks to the timely measures it took and to public support, Türkiye has been one of the countries that most rapidly shook off the negative effects of the epidemic on the labour market.
As we know, the global economy has been undergoing a great transformation for the last 10 years.
Our Türkiye is a country with the capacity to turn this global transformation to its own advantage. At this point we have very valuable advantages and potential. The swift and intelligent reaction the real sector gave to new opportunities during the epidemic period is a clear indicator of our potential. Compared with the period before the epidemic, the share of industry in the economy in Türkiye has recorded an increase of 4-5 points and total exports an increase of USD 73 billion.
Türkiye has proved its worth at the point of being able to design and produce the pioneering technologies of the future, from new-generation defence industry vehicles to the electric automobile.
Examples such as TOGG, TCG Anadolu, İMECE, Kızılelma, Hürjet, Atak 2, MMU and Altay; the extraction and bringing into service of our domestic and national gas and the other enormous moves in the field of energy have been a source of pride for the people of our country.
Praise be to God, in the Century of Türkiye, which was entered crowned with mega projects, there is now a Türkiye that manufactures its own warship, its own warplane and its own tank, that produces electricity from wind and from sun, and that produces its own electric automobile, its own satellite and its own nuclear energy.
The experience obtained from these achievements, compressed into the final period of the first hundred years of the Republic, will pave the way for Türkiye to develop far more sophisticated technologies in the coming decades and to increase the domestic content ratio in strategic sectors.
Türkiye, as much as it is a strong geopolitical player, will also come to the fore in the future as an astropolitical actor with the investments it makes in satellite technologies and space research.
Honourable Deputy Chairman,
Esteemed guests,
In the “Century of Türkiye” our economy will break the middle-income trap and rise to the league of high-income developed economies. We will reach this goal by consolidating macro stability, by producing products with a high level of added value, by developing domestic and national technologies, by expanding export opportunities and by increasing qualified employment.
At this point it is extremely important that the perspective of the “Century of Türkiye” be adopted and embraced by all segments of society, from politicians to the bureaucracy, from the real sector to consumers, from scientists to young people.
Such an inclusive synergy will enable Türkiye to climb the steps of the ladder of development more rapidly.
As MÜSİAD, which comes at the head of the most important representatives of the real sector and of business people in Türkiye, we too attach great importance to stability, development, production, entrepreneurship and innovation.
In Türkiye's new century we will act with the awareness that this comes from upholding “our independence and our future”, “our roots and our skies”, “our origin and our lineage”.
We believe that the codes of the new century will be written by Türkiye's enterprising and courageous young people…
Are we ready, young people?
Honourable Deputy Chairman,
Esteemed Guests,
Beneath the achievements MÜSİAD has obtained in 33 years lie, of course, alongside the courage and effort of our members and the support of our nation, the “strategic development moves” of a “revolutionary” character that our country has realized in the last quarter of a century.
The fruitful march that the architect of this silent revolution, our President Mr Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, launched from İstanbul has today been crowned with force-multiplying mega projects and,
has brought Türkiye first to the level of a “Peace-Building Regional Power”;
and now to the position of a “Rule-Setting Global Player”.
The “Torch of Conscience and Justice” that our Honourable President has lit throughout the world has grown wave upon wave despite all obstructions from within and from without;
and with the ideals of “The World Is Bigger Than Five” and “A More Just World Is Possible” it has become a hope for humanity.
To carry this torch to the new generations by making it shine even more brightly in the “Century of Türkiye” is a debt of honour for all of us.
Since Almighty God is the Truth; “He” is on the side of truth;
Even if, as at present, all the forces of evil come together,
Once Almighty God is our helper:
No power will be able to prevent us from realizing these goals.
As Ziya Paşa said, “The decree of God does not turn by the strength of the arm / A candle that the Lord lights is by no means extinguished”.
Under the leadership of our Honourable President, with the manifestation of the national will;
the struggles waged against tutelage centres, coup attempts and terrorist organizations
and the echoes of the victories obtained travel across the continents today;
giving excitement to friends and fear to enemies.
In order to see where Türkiye has come from and where it has arrived, is it not enough to look from TCG Anadolu, our source of pride, which anchored at Sarayburnu during the Ramadan Feast and adorned the Bosphorus,
to Hagia Sophia, from which rise the calls to prayer echoing in the skies of our İstanbul?
In the hundredth year of the Republic, can there be a clearer and more brilliant indicator of independence and power than this?
In the 570th Year of the Conquest, how could the trust of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Han be upheld more beautifully than this?
However much we give thanks, however much we take pride and however much we uphold these gains, it is not enough.
Now,
In the hundredth year of our Republic it is time, as one and together, to unite, to begin a new period of surging forward and to continue to realize our dreams in the Century of Türkiye...
At this point we have not the slightest hesitation.
This command and warning of our Lord in the Sūrah al-Anfāl will be our guide for this period: “Obey God and His Messenger; do not dispute with one another, lest you lose heart and your strength depart.”
Honourable Deputy Chairman,
Dear Guests,
We believe that, as one and together, uniting as a nation, we will make a strong, determined and magnificent start to the Century of Türkiye.
As the MÜSİAD family we have for 33 years, with this faith, always stood by the truth, the reality, stability and the national will; we are at the same point now too, and our stance is clear.
May God let no harm come to our nation and to our country.
With these feelings and thoughts I pray to Almighty God that our 27th Ordinary General Assembly will be a means of goodness, I thank you all for honouring us with your presence and I extend my respect and affection.
May God protect you.
Mahmut Asmalı
President of MÜSİAD