MÜSİAD TRABZON DINNER PROGRAMME
29 July 2021
Honourable Members of Parliament,
Honourable Metropolitan Mayor,
Honourable District Mayors,
Honourable AK Party Provincial Chairman,
Esteemed Presidents and Representatives of the Trabzon Business World, of the Chambers, the Commodity Exchange and the Non-Governmental Organizations,
Esteemed Members of the MÜSİAD Board of Directors,
Our Branch Presidents Who Have Come from the Neighbouring Provinces and from Abroad,
(Rize, Gümüşhane, Bayburt, Artvin, Tbilisi, Batumi, Munich Germany, the Netherlands, the USA)
Former Presidents of our Trabzon Branch,
Esteemed President and Members of our Trabzon Branch,
Members of the MÜSİAD Women's Committee, My Young MÜSİAD Brothers and Sisters
Esteemed Members of our Press,
In my hometown of Trabzon, with the happiness of having come together on the occasion of this fine event, I respectfully greet you all; welcome, you have honoured us.
Distinguished Guests,
During the pandemic and afterwards a new world economic system developed and, with the effect of global climate change and drought as well, new conditions of life emerged. This new situation showed us realities that we may sum up as being able to fend for oneself and to be self-sufficient.
In times of crisis Türkiye somehow displays economic behaviour that is incomparably faster and more active than that of its rivals in the world, thanks to its active population structure and its production field in terms both of band change and of sectoral breadth, and thanks to its flexible SME structures and of course its low labour costs.
In this respect we must now focus on developing the appropriate strategies and road maps so that we may take our rightful share of the trade and investment environment that has developed after the process which began with the pandemic.
Despite the difficult conditions of the pandemic, I am happy to make contact with Anatolia as far as circumstances allow by means of our branch general assemblies and thus both to hold our general assemblies and to have conversations with you about the economic, commercial and political agenda of our country. What did we say? MÜSİAD is a capital platform that is the most effective and the most widespread in the field, one whose like is rarely encountered. And with this quality it advances with the strength that comes from having penetrated the capillary vessels of our country both economically and socially and from being master even of the finest field information.
These days, praise be to God, the normalization we have passed through, as a result both of the steadily increasing effect of vaccination and of the effective policies our state has applied in managing the pandemic, is at last bringing us together again. And the full normalization we passed through with the month of July will be reflected positively both in our economic life and in our social peace.
For one thing is very clear: this epidemic has adversely affected not only the balances of production and trade but also the spiritual balance of our people and even, unfortunately, their family lives. I always maintain my conviction that everything will gradually fall into place. But it is worth saying once again: this is a global epidemic, and to think it will end all at once and completely would be a very naive dream. As a country we shall manage this process successfully to the end with the new measures, supports and incentives that we shall develop against the fluctuations that will occur from time to time. Indeed, while all the countries of the world were contracting seriously, we, together with China, achieved a serious rate of growth and thus proved once again how dynamic an economy we possess even under all these difficult conditions.
However, I find it useful to underline one particular point here: should the fundamental actor of sustainable development be growth, or a stable economy that does not have high volatility and that is supported by deep-rooted investments? Which of the two is more reassuring both for the industrialist and for the potential investor? I ask this question here briefly and I shall share its answer with you later within a broad perspective. For this is the key point for our competitive strength and our advantages in the new world order and in its markets in the coming period.
Distinguished Guests, my MÜSİAD brothers and sisters,
With a short time remaining before I hand over my Presidency, I have been constantly on the move for my hometown and for our MÜSİAD, in which I have grown up since its foundation and in which I have taken part at every stage, in order to take the pulse of Anatolia at every opportunity, to come together with our members, to make contact with them and to listen to sectoral problems directly from those concerned and convey them to the relevant authorities. I can say that the number of days I have spent at the İstanbul Head Office is very few beside the time I have spent travelling. I feel both happiness and honour at this. Because MÜSİAD is not a capital group squeezed into a single region with a narrow sphere of influence. MÜSİAD is the most living witness of the social, political and economic history of this country and indeed one of the elements that built it.
At the same time, being at their side in times of crisis such as the pandemic and being able to determine on the spot and instantly the strong and weak sides of our members made us structurally dynamic. Indeed the Renewal process, which we carried out within 2.5 years and a significant part of which we were finally able to integrate into our units abroad as well as in Anatolia, required an administrative mentality on this scale. As I hand over my duty to my fellow travellers like a relay race, I entrust to them both a system and a motto. I believe with all my heart that MÜSİAD brotherhood and MÜSİAD dynamism will nurture every kind of fresh mentality within themselves and embrace it as new branches worthy of the mighty plane tree.
As will be recalled, last year, after the first shaking of economic activity following the first shock of the pandemic, the recovery process that set Türkiye apart from comparable countries drew the attention of the whole world.
The Turkish economy, which grew by %1.8 over the whole of 2020, was in the first quarter of 2021 the fastest-growing economy in the G20 after China.
And we for our part had stated that we saw this growth of %7 as the harbinger of the exit from the pandemic and that this development showed the world that the centre of investment, production and trade is Türkiye.
With the effect of the loosening of the lockdowns applied because of the epidemic and of the strong fiscal incentives, we believe that the positive growth trend of the Turkish economy will continue in the coming period as well with the policies applied by our President and the government. We expect growth of over %15 in the second quarter.
Despite the slowdown in credit growth and the high interest rates, the increasing pace of vaccination raises our expectations that economic activity will gain momentum, particularly in the third quarter beginning with the month of July and thereafter.
As MÜSİAD we believe that GDP growth will come in above the %5.8 targeted for 2021 within the scope of the New Economy Program. Current data too support this expectation of ours.
We believe that, with the revival of the economic activity that had contracted because of pandemic conditions, the contribution of domestic demand to growth will record an increase.
Economic and commercial activities that had contracted all over the world have at last begun to open up and even to expand. But in the matter of taking a share of investments in particular, while the developed countries have fallen behind, the developing countries attracted the world's foreign direct investments at a rate reaching %70. Our country, on the other hand, was unable to take the share it wanted from this fertile flow.
When the period of the last twenty years is taken into account, the data show that for the first time our values in attracting foreign direct investment have fallen and that some foreign investors have moved away from our country.
This situation is the harbinger of our standing at the door of a highly critical period in terms of sustainable development in the coming period.
The inflationary environment we are currently in and the high credit costs show that we are still a risky investment area.
Great duties fall to us here. Investment is now made and defined in the world under entirely new conditions.
We too must keep pace with this change and address investment not merely as inviting the companies of certain countries here as partners, but as presenting Türkiye as an investment market.
We must promote Türkiye to the foreign direct investor as an investment and trade market, operate MÜSİAD's external field presence like a trade and investment system, and for this establish a structure that will work under the higher umbrella of the state. The models for this have been determined. With this system, fund flows will be directed into project partnership through MÜSİAD, an institution of proven reliability, and this will both set investment diplomacy in motion and draw the active investment diaspora abroad to our country.
While the world still preserves its perception of production in the East, the Western economies had established for themselves a financial economic ecosystem around a concept of money that is traded as a commodity and that in fact does not exist in the derivative markets and is defined like a promissory note with a forward transaction.
And unfortunately, as developing economies, we were being affected a great deal by this financial economic system because of our fragile capital structures. We still see this effect.
The solution, as we have always stated, is that real economic concepts based on production be taken as the basis in explaining economic problems.
Distinguished Guests,
What should the fundamental conditions of sustainable growth be?
The answer to these questions passes through creating correct investment strategies, being able to attract foreign investments to our country and establishing an economic network of high added value around city economies.
We are obliged to keep pace with the conditions peculiar to the new world order. The most important of these is that investments be channelled correctly and that city economies in particular be adopted as the fundamental strategy in investment planning.
While cities with similar characteristics in the world have reached enormous figures in terms both of production volume and of their contribution to GNP, it is unacceptable that our cities possessing the same values should be squeezed economically into a particular area.
This is possible only through determining the distinctive values of cities, bringing those values together with suitable investments and investors, constantly monitoring the efficiency of supports and incentives and, of course, turning that city into a brand in the process of transforming value into asset.
We are now obliged 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 correctly, that they are transferred to the right places, and that investors are reached and guided.
Alongside this, it is of course also essential that the values peculiar to each city of our country be explained far better.
And this is possible only through a new investment network that has spread to every corner of the world and draws investment, production and trade information from every point, that knows investment environments and that establishes the system to bring investors together with firms in Türkiye.
The MÜSİAD TIA (MÜSİAD TRADE and INVESTMENT AGENCIES) system, which we designed together with the Presidency Investment Office in order to promote Türkiye to the foreign direct investor as an investment and trade market and to operate MÜSİAD's external field presence like a trade and investment system, will serve this purpose and will thus both set investment diplomacy in motion and draw the active investment diaspora abroad to our country.
Distinguished Guests,
We state this at every opportunity: “in the future it is not states but cities that will compete”. For this reason the creation of regional economies and city economies is essential.
In this way we shall have cities that are self-sufficient and that have been able to turn their own assets into value.
Turning cities into brands and transforming their existing assets into value, that is, determining their potentials and increasing the values of the provinces with investments suited to those potentials, is an extremely important matter.
On our travels around every point of Türkiye we obtain a certain amount of data. With this data and with the experience that comes from making direct contact with you, we created a project, and matching cities became the basic starting point of this project of ours. We named this work “Developing Cities with Their Distinctive Values and Turning Them into Brands”.
Determining a correct industrialization policy passes through finding, supporting, enlarging the scale of and increasing the capital power of promising firms that will keep this economy standing in order to create city economies, and through carrying this out with the domestic and national production drive in such a way as both to turn cities into brands and to strengthen firms. I call this operating city economies for the execution of industrialization.
In this context Trabzon's GDP is USD 6.1 billion; while the economy of the province of Trabzon rests on agriculture, %75 of the active population lives from agriculture, livestock, fishing, hunting and forestry. The principal agricultural products are hazelnuts, tea, potatoes and maize. Those employed in trade, industry, handicrafts, transport, construction and other services make up %35 of the population. While industry has been developing rapidly across the province in recent years, it is seen as a province that is a candidate to become an industrial centre in the near future.
The brand province we have determined for Trabzon is Liverpool, one of the leading trade and industry cities of England.
In Liverpool, one of the largest cities of England, because one of the world's most important trading ports has historically been located there, shipping companies, insurance companies, banks and the administrative buildings of large companies have been built.
The enormous seafront congress and exhibition centre, together with the strong growth in business tourism in the city, forms the foundation of the economy.
In addition to these, its hosting of a football stadium, a cruise terminal, offices, hotels and entertainment venues is of vital importance in the growth of the city.
It is also seen that recently the Banking, Finance and Insurance sectors in particular have been the fastest-growing areas of the regional economy.
We believe that Liverpool, which is able to produce an economic value of USD 36.8 billion with a population of only 1.2 million, constitutes an important precedent for Trabzon, and that Trabzon too possesses this potential in abundance.
Distinguished Guests,
I have tried to fit into my four years of MÜSİAD Presidency a great many projects, countless friendships, hundreds of visits and of course the Renewal process which expresses our institutional transformation.
Thanks be to God, with memories in which the good and the successful predominate, we shall shortly hand over our duty at the general assembly in İstanbul to Mahmut Asmalı Bey and his administration.
To be remembered with good for what we have added to our MÜSİAD and of course to our country is my greatest wish.
Müsiad is a school , a home , a cause.
On this occasion I ask you to grant me your forgiveness for whatever rights of yours I may owe.
As I complete my words with these feelings, I thank everyone who has contributed to this fine event which has been the occasion of our coming together here today, and I greet you with respect and affection.
Abdurrahman KAAN
President of MÜSİAD