9th WCI International Business Forum - President’s Speech

Distinguished Participants,

Esteemed Businesspeople

“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” This African proverb almost describes MÜSİAD. We do not want to act on our own. We want to be strong together.

It was with this feeling and this thought that the foundations of MÜSİAD were laid exactly 33 years ago, with the abundance of Anatolia, with the power of sharing and of labour, and with the faith, the determination and the resolve of 12 young businesspeople. MÜSİAD set out with the aim of opening the power of Anatolia to the world and of strengthening local development.

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

For 33 years, under the roof of MÜSİAD, we have carried out many beneficial works both for our country and for our people. While carrying the strength we took from Anatolia to all four corners of the world, we never compromised on our ideals and on our essence.

We as MÜSİAD members share a very important ideal. Although MÜSİAD is fundamentally a community of businesspeople, in terms of its work, its thoughts, its principles and the values it defends it is a voluntary non-governmental organization that carries the strength of the people of Anatolia to the whole world.

After the first seeds of MÜSİAD fell into the soil in İstanbul, they rapidly sprouted and blossomed in all four corners of Anatolia and abroad. It built its organizational structure on solid foundations. Today MÜSİAD is the most widely organized non-governmental organization in Türkiye. It continues its successful work with 13 thousand members at its 84 points at home.

In addition, with its 85 branches organized in every region of the world and with its branches and contact points spread over a total of 169 points on a local and global scale, it serves both its members and businesspeople. This number increases many times over with each passing day.

Together with our representative offices, which increase day by day, we attach great importance to organizing abroad in particular. For this reason the African continent occupies a very important place for us. In our view, whatever the colour of our faces and of our eyes may be, the colour of our tears is the same. We have brothers and sisters in Africa, and as MÜSİAD we are working to win together with our brothers and sisters in Africa. We will work together, we will develop together, we will win together.

At present we serve with some 15 branches and representative offices in Africa. God willing, we aim to raise this number to 25 by the end of 2023.

Distinguished Participants,

Another subject we are working on is the idea of holding our MÜSİAD EXPO Fair, which has become traditional, abroad for the first time. We have chosen Africa for this fair, which we will hold for the first time outside the borders of our country. God willing, we plan to hold our 2025 MÜSİAD EXPO Fair in Africa. On this matter, just as we have accelerated our organizational work, we have also considerably accelerated our diplomatic and bureaucratic contacts.

We have endeavoured to increase our talks with African countries in line with this goal, especially over the past two years. Within this period around 15 delegations came to MÜSİAD from Africa; we also both visited more than 20 African ambassadors and consuls and had the opportunity to host them at our head office. Likewise, five ministers serving in African countries visited our head office. I thank each of our esteemed ministers separately for these visits, which delighted us.

Our efforts to develop our diplomatic and commercial relations with African countries will continue in the days ahead as well. On 4 October 2023 we plan to give a reception at the Africa House in Ankara, to be attended by all the African ambassadors. With this great event, which Mrs. Emine Erdoğan will also attend, we aim to make our commercial and diplomatic ties with African countries much stronger.

Distinguished guests, esteemed MÜSİAD Family,

Since the occasion has arisen, I would like to share a few pieces of data with you regarding our commercial relations with Africa...

While the bilateral trade volume between Türkiye and the African countries stood at an average level of USD 20 billion in the 2013-2020 period, it rose to USD 29.4 billion in 2021. And in 2022 it made a historic peak, rising to the level of USD 33.1 billion.

In this period Türkiye’s exports to the African countries rose to USD 23.6 billion, recording an increase of % 11.3 compared with the previous year, while Türkiye’s imports from the African countries rose to USD 9.5 billion, increasing by % 15.5.

We can say that the said commercial development between our country and the African countries slowed somewhat in the first 7 months of 2023, the year we are in. Accordingly, the bilateral trade volume, which stood at the level of USD 19.8 billion in the same period of 2022, declined to USD 17.3 billion in the January-July period of 2023.

In the coming periods we intend to increase this amount even further and to raise it to a new historic record level. God willing, we will accomplish these leaps in the periods ahead.

A very interesting figure that I would like to give also concerns the amounts of direct investment made in the region: while no direct investment at all was made from the African countries into our country in 2002, USD 221 million was invested in 2013 and a total of USD 517 million in the 2002-2022 period. In addition, the volume of projects undertaken by Turkish contracting firms has grown rapidly and reached the level of USD 77.8 billion in Africa.

We know very well that the economic relations between Türkiye and the African countries will continue to increase in the coming years as well.

Distinguished guests,

The African continent, which covers % 20 of the world’s surface area, % 60 of arable land and % 30 of mineral reserves, and whose population is estimated to reach 3 billion in 2050, ranks first especially in terms of the proportion of its young population. In this respect Africa is also a candidate to become the rising power of the new world.

But on the other hand, as we all know, there is also the other side of the coin: despite these riches, Africa, which possesses only % 3 of global GDP, receives less than % 3 of international trade and, moreover, bears % 25 of the global disease burden.

Ultimately, it is highly important from our point of view that our country should continue with increasing momentum the policies it has pursued towards the African countries over the past 20 years within the framework of a “win-win” understanding. And we as MÜSİAD always stand alongside our state in order to sustain this important effort.

Esteemed MÜSİAD Family, distinguished guests,

Our MÜSİAD, whose very name has become identified with the sweat of the brow, has at all times continued on its path with a vision of a business world rising on the foundation of virtue, high morality, high technology and trust. In this important cause of civilization that it has pursued, it has always stood on the side of the right, of the rightful, of the one who labours and of the one who strives. And now we too are working with all our hearts in order to carry this movement of the virtuous, which has reached all four corners of the world, even higher, and in order to stand on the side of the right and of the rightful.

Because we, as MÜSİAD members, share a very important ideal. Together with all our members we work day and night in order to realize the great and powerful ideal of the “Century of Türkiye”.

Because MÜSİAD means keeping the interest of the country and of the people in the foreground at all times and under all circumstances.

MÜSİAD means never departing from the pleasure of God, and carrying the sensitivity of the Medina Market into today’s business world.

MÜSİAD means working and struggling so that Türkiye, as a strong country, takes the place it deserves in the world arena.

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

At the end of my speech I would also like to share an African proverb that I love very much. “Until the lions write their own stories, we will have to listen to the stories of the hunters.”

We want to write our own story and to silence the hunters.

I greet with respect and reverence all the businesspeople who provide added value to the Turkish economy with their efforts, their labour and the sweat of their brow…

May God protect you.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD