27-28 September, Iraq-Erbil Branch Opening

Dear MÜSİAD Family,

Esteemed representatives of our business world,

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I respectfully greet you all.

Welcome to our Erbil Branch opening programme; you have honoured us with your presence…

Dear Friends,

As you know, MÜSİAD has at all times taken pioneering and guiding steps in the matter of organization. From the year 1990, when it was founded, to this day it has entered into a very strong and effective organizational structure by means of the branches and representative offices it has opened both in our country and abroad.

MÜSİAD continues its successful work with great determination at its 84 locations at home, with 13 thousand members. In addition, we serve our members in a total of 81 countries, from the east to the west of the world, through our liaison offices spread across a global network of exactly 169 points. God willing, we will carry this number further upwards in the period ahead.

And today, thanks be to God, we are taking yet another fine step in the name of organization in Iraq. With the branch we have opened in Erbil, one of the most distinguished cities of our neighbour Iraq, we are taking a very important step with the aim of contributing both to our members here and to the economies of our country and of Iraq.

May God be pleased with everyone who has contributed to our branch opening. May God not let our efforts go to waste.

Esteemed MÜSİAD Family,

In 2023, together with the 100th anniversary of our Republic, a new road map was adopted under the leadership of our esteemed President. This road map of ours, named the “Century of Türkiye”, is in fact the form in which the efforts put forward over the last twenty years have reached their peak.

In recent years in particular, a perspective has been adopted that brings to the fore not only cultural but also economic, commercial and diplomatic relations with the entire Muslim geography of the world, from Africa to Malaysia, from Azerbaijan to Bosnia and Herzegovina, from China to the Middle East.

As you know, Türkiye-Iraq relations are progressing in a very dynamic manner. Türkiye’s relations with Baghdad and Erbil preserve their importance in every field and at every scale. The strategic development road project, the fight against terrorism, the water issue and the reconstruction of Iraq, infrastructure projects and superstructure projects constitute the main items of our agenda.

And we, as the MÜSİAD Family, whether through the business trips we have made or through our diplomatic and commercial contacts, have always aligned ourselves with our country’s vision and perspective and have made efforts to build new commercial relations. And we continue to do so.

As you know, on 10-12 June 2022 we held the MÜSİAD IBF 2nd Turkish-Arab Business Summit in our industrial city of Gaziantep. Our summit, which the former Minister of Trade of Iraq attended together with a business delegation of 300 people, attracted great interest. Thanks to our summit, which featured business meetings, panels, city presentations and a fair as well as business gatherings, we had the opportunity to bring together nearly 1,600 business people.

We are planning to hold the third of the Turkish-Arab Business Summit, which we organized in Gaziantep, which was quite productive and about which we received very positive feedback, in June of next year, once again in another of our distinguished cities, Konya. God willing, we think it will be a productive meeting…

While I am on the subject, I would also like to recall a very important organization of ours: in order to increase our commercial contacts with the Gulf countries and to develop our cooperation, we will hold an IBF meeting in Saudi Arabia in the near future, in January 2024.

Esteemed members of MÜSİAD,

Erbil, with its culture, its past and its political position, is one of the largest commercial cities of Iraq. Today Erbil is a commercial and cultural centre and a world-class tourism city that develops continuously together with the countries bordering the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

Whether by virtue of its geographical position or of its economic and cultural closeness, it is a city that holds an extremely important place in terms of increasing our country’s commercial relations with Iraq. As MÜSİAD, our aim, together with the Erbil Branch we have opened, is to accelerate commercial diplomacy both for our members and for the citizens of the two countries.

Dear members of MÜSİAD,

The Iraqi economy, whose size was approximately USD 264.18 billion according to 2022 data, again displayed growth of %7 on an annual basis over the course of 2022. According to IMF estimates, the Iraqi economy is expected to grow by %3.7 over the course of 2023 and by %3.1 in 2024.

When we look at our commercial relations, we can say that we are faced with a graph that rises with each passing day. The economic cooperation and diplomatic traffic that have increased especially in recent years foresee more intensive investment activity and cooperation in the period ahead.

The recent contacts of our esteemed Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iraq are proof that development is moving in this direction. Moreover, the visit our esteemed President will pay to Iraq in the near future is another important indicator of the growing cooperation.

On the other hand, the “Development Road Project” has emerged as a project that carries the ground of cooperation between the two countries to very advanced levels and that excites the countries of the region as much as Turkish and Iraqi investors. Defined as the “New Silk Road”, the project holds the power to affect a very wide geography from Europe to the Gulf countries and to produce common benefit.

Dear friends,

To be one, to be together, will make us strong. It is above all our acting jointly as representatives of the business world that will strengthen our economies.

From the moment it was founded, MÜSİAD has acted with the thought of high morality and high technology.

As I complete my remarks here, I thank all those devoted to MÜSİAD, from our founding cadre who laboured to bring our MÜSİAD to this day, to the newest member to join our family. I pray for God’s mercy upon those who have departed from among us.

MÜSİAD has come to this day with faith, with love of the cause and with patience. God willing, by working with determination day and night, with God’s permission we will also shape the future together.

I wish that the opening of our Erbil Branch may bring goodness first and foremost to the MÜSİAD community, and to our country and our nation. I greet you all with my most sincere feelings…

May God protect you.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD