MÜSİAD RİZE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

MÜSİAD RİZE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

28 July 2021

Honourable President of the Second Term,

Esteemed Members of the MÜSİAD Board of Directors,

Former Presidents of Our Rize Branch,

Branch Presidents Who Have Come from the Neighbouring Provinces,

Esteemed President and Members of Our Rize Branch,

My Brothers and Sisters of Young MÜSİAD,

Esteemed Members of the Press,

I respectfully greet you all at the General Assembly of our Branch; welcome, you have honoured us with your presence.

Distinguished Guests,

The measures and restrictions brought about by the pandemic prevented us from coming together with you for quite a long time; we had to hold some of our meetings online rather than face to face.

With the conditions of normalization, today, thank God, we are holding our general assemblies together with you, our friends, and making up for the longing we have felt.

In order to be informed about every corner of our country and to reach more people, we have visited many of our provinces and we are continuing our visits. On Monday we were in Batumi, Georgia; yesterday we were in Hopa and Artvin. We held the opening of our Artvin Representative Office together with our members of parliament and the local administrations. Today we are in Rize, the capital of tea and one of the most important settlements of the Black Sea.

Let us take a brief look at the economic picture of Rize:

While the province's exports stood at USD 166 million throughout 2020, decreasing by USD 3.7 million compared to the previous year, its imports in the same period increased by USD 7.3 million to USD 34.3 million.

The %68 increase in the exports realized in the January–May period of 2021 compared to the previous year has been an optimistic indicator for the continuation of the recovery that began in 2019.

In the city, where exports of USD 90.1 million were realized in the January–May period of 2021, import figures were announced as USD 24.9 million.

In order for Rize to use the fields in which it is competent more effectively and to increase its share in the provincial and national economy, we must give weight to new investments, make maximum use of the existing potential and do our very best.

As we express at every opportunity, as MÜSİAD we are always ready to put our shoulder to the wheel at this point.

Esteemed Friends,

Last month we came together with the economy editors of our press in order to explain our country's investment strategies suited to the new world order and our project of developing and branding cities with their own distinctive values. Our project met with a fine response both among members of the press and in public opinion.

As you know, Türkiye has in recent years been going through a period in which it has partly struggled, particularly with regard to foreign direct investment. In line with the commercial and economic activity that opened up after the pandemic, investments shifted towards the developing countries. The developed countries were unable to take the share they wanted from this pie.

Our country, on the other hand, despite ranking among the top in the class of developing countries and having favourable conditions for investment, could not attract the foreign direct investment it desired.

Foreign investments in Türkiye declined compared to 2019, and at the point that has now been reached, in the final months of this year we unfortunately see that the low figures show a decrease in investors' interest in our country.

Distinguished Guests, My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The pandemic, which we have been struggling with for a year and a half, has upset the established assumptions of almost every country in the world in the fields of the economy, trade and social life.

Vaccination rates are rising and countries are striving to enter a process of recovery.

But we can now see this clearly: even if the disease-related effects of the pandemic come to an end, the world is on the threshold of implementing a new economic order with brand-new rules.

Therefore, we now have to follow the new models of development and growth, that is, the new business development models of the new world order.

For this, it is necessary to ensure that investments are attracted in the right way, channelled to the right places, and that investors are reached and guided. In addition to this, of course, it is also essential that the distinctive values of every city of our country be explained far better. And this is possible only with a new investment network that is spread all over the world, that draws investment, production and trade information from every point, that knows investment environments and that establishes the system which will bring investors together with companies in Türkiye.

We express this at every opportunity: “in the future it will not be states but cities that compete”. For this reason, the creation of regional economies and city economies is essential. In this way 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 transformation of their existing assets into value, that is, the identification of their potential and the increase of the provinces' value through investments suited to that potential, is an extremely important matter.

In our travels, in which we tour every corner of Türkiye, we obtain a certain body of data. With this 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. We named this work “Developing and Branding Cities with Their Distinctive Values”.

Determining a correct industrialization policy comes through finding, supporting, scaling up and increasing the capital strength of the promising companies that will keep this economy on its feet in order to create city economies, and, with a domestic and national production drive, both branding the cities and strengthening the companies. I call this putting city economies to work for the execution of industrialization.

In this context, the GDP of the province of Rize is USD 2.8 billion, and close to %70 of the active population in the province works in the agricultural sector. Because its lands are quite rugged and not suitable for ploughing, only fruit and vegetable farming can be carried out apart from tea.

The brand province we have determined for Rize is the city of Sochi, located in Krasnodar Krai in Russia.

Sochi's GDP is USD 15.3 billion. The city lies on the foothills of the western part of the Caucasus, on the Black Sea coast, and has the quality of being Russia's largest holiday city. Sochi, which hosted 5.5 million tourists in 2018, is also known as a treatment centre with hot springs that are good for many illnesses.

As I mentioned a moment ago, with its natural riches and with the features that make it stand out in the region and in the field of new tourism resources, there is no obstacle whatsoever before Rize's growth to the scale of Sochi.

Distinguished Guests,

We in fact also see our project for the development of City Economies as a road map for Türkiye's determination of a new investment policy.

The only capital organization that can support the realization in Türkiye of these efforts, which appear difficult but which can be brought to life with sound organization and hard work, is MÜSİAD.

Because the organization that understands the language of both the industrialist and the SME, that develops projects, that is more dynamic with its renewed structure and that, with its wide reach, can most effectively conduct the commercial and economic diplomacy and the investment diplomacy between the world and Türkiye is again MÜSİAD.

The primary duty that falls to us must first of all be a change of mindset and mentality. That is, to approach investment not merely as inviting companies in certain countries here as partners, but as presenting Türkiye as an investment market. And it must be to grow soundly the SME elements that are the locomotive of domestic production and, with the advantages of economies of scale, to bring them together with foreign partners and fund owners, that is, a kind of matching.

The MÜSİAD TIA (MÜSİAD TRADE and INVESTMENT AGENCIES) system, which we designed together with the Presidency Investment Office in order to present Türkiye as an investment and trade market for the direct foreign investor and to operate MÜSİAD's international field presence like a trade and investment system, will serve this purpose, and in this way it will both put investment diplomacy into operation and attract to our country the active investment diaspora abroad.

Esteemed Friends,

As MÜSİAD, in order to prepare in advance for the new world system, we launched our process of renewal.

On this road, on which we set out with the motto “Together”, we leave the word “we are here” to the next term.

With the peace of mind of having kept the promises I gave you when I first took office and of having fulfilled this sacred duty as it deserves, we say “we are here” at all times for Türkiye, in production, in trade, in investment, in every field of society from art to culture, in solidarity, and for the development and prosperity of our country.

MÜSİAD, particularly after the renewal process, is taking its place among the world's leading organizations by arranging its own structure in the face of the new world order and by developing a distinctive management and organization model.

My colleagues and I struggled for this throughout our term of office in order to reach what is better, and we have no doubt that the brothers and sisters who will come after us will take over this cause and this relay race in the same consciousness and with the same principle and carry it on.

As MÜSİAD, we are developing projects aimed at increasing the contribution made to the national economy and at improving the culture of partnership among our members.

Our committees have begun to gather the potential investors and industrialists in Anatolia around certain projects, with projects compatible with their own thematic or sectoral fields.

These projects have begun to encourage the capital power in Anatolia to invest in projects or to become a partner in them.

For example, with our Investment and Production Bases Project we have created a model that builds, for our small-scale companies which have difficulty producing in narrow spaces and which therefore cannot reach scale, living and production zones where all their needs will be met in the same environment, and that will in time turn them into institutionalized companies ready to move to organized industrial zones. We have completed the first prototype of this model, and the construction of the second will also begin soon.

On the other hand, with our Smart Agricultural Cities Project, we have launched an initiative to encourage rural development and in this way to support reverse migration and to attain a homogeneous population structure.

We presented this to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as a model. We will announce the provinces soon.

Many more projects like these have been produced by our committees and spread to the grassroots.

God willing, through this integration process in the branches, you will be instrumental in carrying our MÜSİAD much further forward.

Distinguished Guests, Esteemed Friends,

In 2020, a year in which the pandemic was the main agenda, the whole world was shaken in economic and social terms.

Türkiye was of course affected as well, but after the first shock it drew a successful recovery curve.

We recovered gradually, and this was reflected in our capacity utilization rates. Our manufacturing industry, for its part, settled into a notable course of development in the last two quarters.

Here I would like to touch on a point that I consider important:

As Türkiye, we must certainly eliminate at the earliest possible time the two fundamental factors that force inflationary pressure.

The first is to be self-sufficient. That is, to carry out domestically, as far as possible, the production of the nearly USD 175 billion worth of intermediate goods that are imported, to minimize external dependency and, of course, to give up seeing money as a commodity instrument.

The second is to provide resident savers with new and reliable investment opportunities in which they can put to use the foreign currency and gold they hold and their money in interest or profit-share accounts.

Establishing venture capital funds through which projects will be securitized and, through these funds, reinforcing the culture of partnership and thereby encouraging production in Türkiye must also be a matter with which we certainly have to concern ourselves.

We can evaluate this %7 growth in the first quarter as the harbinger of the exit from the pandemic. Indeed, with the base effect, we may even see the growth rate in the second quarter above %15. However, for this situation to be sustainable, we must achieve investment–production–trade synchronization and set out production as the fundamental economic policy.

The inflationary environment we are currently in and the high credit costs show that we are still a risky investment area.

Esteemed Guests, My MÜSİAD Brothers and Sisters,

In a short while, God willing, I will hand over the duty of the Presidency of MÜSİAD to my brother Mahmut Asmalı at the general assembly. As I hand over the flag in the long marathon that MÜSİAD has represented to the administration that comes after us, my greatest wish is to have not betrayed your trust and to have fulfilled the duties that fell to me.

Throughout my term of office, I strove to be a president who kept his finger on the pulse of the business world and of the field.

Contact with our members, consultation and fellowship with them, the constant hosting of the branches in Anatolia at the Head Office and thereby raising the closeness between the centre and the FIELD to the highest level have been my basic goal.

We express it at every opportunity: MÜSİAD is a school, it is a home. And we are marathon runners. I believe that our friends who will take over the duty and continue this marathon will do their utmost to carry our MÜSİAD much further forward than we did.

On this occasion, I ask you to forgive me for any right of yours I may not have observed.

As I complete my speech with these feelings, I wish that our branch's general assembly may be a means of goodness; I thank our Rize branch president Recep Taylan and his board, who are handing over the duty, and I wish success to Taner Bey and to the board of directors who will take over the duty.

I pray to Almighty God that our branch's contributions to the Rize business world, to the Black Sea Region and to our country continue to increase through its work.

I thank everyone who contributed to this organization and greet you with respect and affection. May God protect you.

Abdurrahman KAAN

President of MÜSİAD