MÜSİAD KIRŞEHİR OPENING PROGRAMME

4 August 2021

Honourable Member of Parliament,

Honourable District Mayors,

Of the Kırşehir Business World, of the political parties, (Akparti Kırşehir and Kırıkkale Provincial Chairmen)

Esteemed Presidents and Representatives of the chambers, commodity exchanges and NGOs,

Esteemed Members of the MÜSİAD Board of Directors,

Our Branch Presidents Coming from the Surrounding Provinces (Aksaray, Kayseri, Ankara, Kırıkkale)

Esteemed president and members of our Kırşehir Branch,

Esteemed Members of the Press,

Ladies and Gentlemen

I respectfully greet you here in Kırşehir, where we have come together on the occasion of the opening of our branch; welcome, you have honoured us with your presence.

Distinguished Guests, Dear Friends,

MÜSİAD is a rarely equalled capital platform, the most effective and widespread in the field. With this characteristic it has penetrated as far as the capillaries of our country both economically and socially, and it advances with the strength that comes from commanding even the finest field knowledge.

MÜSİAD is the pioneer of domestic and national capital in our country and indeed the main element that built it.

It is an institution that does not forget, not only in the economic field, its high morality, its virtue, the Akhi culture, and help to those in difficulty such as Qard al-Hasan and the zimem ledger.

In 2020 many countries were shaken economically and socially because of the pandemic.

Our country, after the first shock experienced, drew a successful recovery curve; and today we are successfully sustaining that curve.

These days, praise be to God, the normalization conditions we have passed through, as a result both of the increasing effect of vaccination and of the effective policies our state has implemented in managing the Pandemic, are finally bringing us together again. And the full normalization we will move to with the month of July will be reflected positively both in our economic life and in our social peace.

During and after the pandemic a new world economic system developed, and with the effect of global climate change and drought new living conditions emerged. This new situation showed us realities that we can summarize as being able to fend for oneself and to be self-sufficient.

As Türkiye, we must focus on developing appropriate strategies and road maps in order to take our rightful share of the trade and investment environment that has developed after the process that began with the pandemic.

As in every difficult period, in this process too we as business people must focus on new investments and on increasing our trade potential in order to contribute to our country's recovery process.

As MÜSİAD, we know that our contribution to this effort is great thanks to our organizational network, which we have expanded with great care, and to the strong trade network and commercial relations our branches and representative offices have established in their regions.

I hope that our branch, whose opening we are holding here today, will also be engaged in productive work that contributes to its region and to our country, and I wish that it brings blessings to our country.

Distinguished Guests, Dear friends,

We put forward a claim; we said that in the future it will not be states but cities that compete. For this reason it is essential to create regional and urban economies, that is, city economies. Thus we will have cities that are self-sufficient and that have been able to turn their own assets into value.

The branding of cities and the turning of their existing assets into value, that is, the proper identification of their potential and the increasing of the value of the provinces through investments suited to that potential.

We obtain a number of data on our travels, in which we visit every point of Türkiye. With these data and with the experience that comes from being in direct contact with you, we created a project, and matching cities became the basic starting point of this project of ours.

We named this study “Developing and Branding Cities Through Their Distinctive Values”.

Determining a correct industrialization policy means finding, supporting, scaling up and increasing the capital strength of promising companies that will keep this economy standing in order to create city economies, and, with the domestic and national production drive, both branding the cities and strengthening the companies. We can summarize this system as putting city economies to work for the execution of industrialization.

While 80 percent of the active population of Kırşehir is engaged in the agricultural sector, the weight of the industrial sector in employment stands at only 7 percent.

The brand province we have identified in order to develop the industry of our province of Kırşehir has been Clermont, which lies at the geographical centre of France.

Located in the Rhone-Alpes region, the second most populous and wealthiest region of France, Clermont, with a size of USD 17.5 billion, stands out in the food processing, pharmaceuticals, tyre production, electronics, medical products, machinery and clothing sectors.

With a size of USD 3.6 billion and a per capita income exceeding USD 6,500, we believe that Kırşehir too possesses this potential in abundance.

Dear Friends,

Before concluding my speech with these feelings, I wish ease above all to our nation, to the teams on duty and to the state officials who are fighting the fires that have broken out at more than one point in our country.

May my Lord grant that these fires, which burn our hearts, come to an end as soon as possible. As MÜSİAD, from the first day we have reached the regions damaged by the fires and are supporting the people of the region through our branches. And until these hard days are over, we will always be ready to do whatever is in our power.

My greatest wish is to be remembered for the work we carry out in order not to have disappointed the trust of you, our esteemed members and friends, and in order to be able to contribute more to our country.

Throughout my term of office I always worked to take the pulse of the business world and of the field.

Contact with our members, consultation and fellowship with them, the frequent hosting of the Anatolian branches at the Head Office and thus raising the closeness between the centre and the FIELD to the highest level, have been my fundamental goal.

I believe that our friends who will take over the duty and continue this marathon will show every effort to carry our MÜSİAD far further than we have.

On this occasion I ask you to grant me your forgiveness for any rights of yours that may be upon me.

As I conclude my speech with these feelings, I wish that our branch may be auspicious, and I wish success to our representative office president and to the board of directors.

I thank everyone who has contributed to this organization and greet you with respect and affection.

Abdurrahman KAAN

President of MÜSİAD