International Business Forum (IBF)
16 October 2019
SARAJEVO
Honourable Minister (Minister of Trade Ruhsar Pekcan),
Honourable Deputy Minister (Deputy Minister of Treasury and Finance Nurettin Nebati), Honourable Founding President of MÜSİAD and President of the IBF,
Honourable President of the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce,
Esteemed Representatives of the Business World,
Esteemed Members of the Press,
At our International Business Forum, I greet you with the greeting of God; As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Welcome, you have honoured us with your presence.
Honourable Minister, Distinguished Guests,
I would like to begin my remarks by referring to Operation Peace Spring, which the Turkish Armed Forces are conducting with great determination and success.
Türkiye acts with the goal of being a base of peace in its region. It has always struggled with determination against the elements that pose a threat to its territorial integrity and border security.
The struggle carried out in order to stop the terrorist organizations threatening our lands in Syria and their extensions inside the country, and to create a safe zone, continues today in Syria.
Operation Peace Spring, launched upon the necessity seen by our state, aims for the region to attain an environment of peace and security as soon as possible.
The operation, conducted meticulously while protecting the territorial integrity of Syria and the safety of life of the people of the region, is also extremely important in that it once again brings down the mask of the West.
We see that the condemnations that were expected to be directed at terrorist organizations and at attacks openly targeting civilians are instead being directed at Türkiye. Of course, we are no longer surprised. Unfortunately, this is an attitude we are familiar with.
We hope that the Western countries and the countries that follow in the West's wake will see the truth as soon as possible.
Seeing the truth may sometimes not come about of its own accord. It may be necessary to help those who have drifted away from the truth, to be a compass for them.
And we, as MÜSİAD, will keep explaining it for as long as our breath lasts, through our broad organizational network and the strong ties we have established.
In other words, we will conduct Public Diplomacy.
Our branch presidents, our representatives and every single MÜSİAD member abroad will explain the just grounds and the necessity of the operation Türkiye is conducting.
We experienced something similar to today's information pollution and the deliberate distortion of information during the 15 July Treacherous Coup Attempt. It was a painful process.
Such a strong counter-attack against Türkiye began that we could not express ourselves. We had difficulty explaining the truth to broad masses and to world public opinion.
Even though we knew we were in the right, and even though our rightfulness was in fact known by many states as well, we could not conduct healthy communication.
Today, in order to prevent this, we will all stand together and carry out this process within our own sphere of influence — and we now know that this sphere is quite broad.
It is one of the words of the Wise King Aliya İzzetbegoviç that have passed into history; he says, “Hold fast to your faith, to your flag and to your state”.
As MÜSİAD, the common roof of the business people who hold fast to these, I would like once again to express strongly that we support to the end the moves of our state and the stance of the political will.
On this occasion, I wish success to our heroic soldiers in Operation Peace Spring, I pray for God's mercy upon our brothers who have fallen as martyrs, and I wish a swift recovery to our wounded.
Esteemed Guests,
It is of great spiritual value for us that the International Business Forum, whose 23rd edition we are witnessing this year, is taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On the other hand, the trade and investment potential that Bosnia and Herzegovina possesses gives our coming together here yet another meaning.
The country offers business people many privileges in sectors such as food, agriculture, livestock, tourism, construction, health and furniture.
Within the scope of the IBF, sectoral meetings will be held in which all these privileges and advantages will be highlighted.
I would like to express that I find the organization especially valuable in terms of our business people having detailed information about Bosnia and Herzegovina and becoming acquainted with the new business and investment opportunities in the country.
While we are together with our valued friends who have come from the four corners of the world, I would like briefly to assess the economic and commercial point that both our Türkiye and the world have reached.
Today all economic activity now takes place on the basis of knowledge.
It is a fact that processes such as the acquisition, the processing and the transformation of knowledge are the essential element of the economic system.
The process covers not only the production of knowledge but at the same time its use and its dissemination.
This has become a very important strategy for countries at the macro level and for companies at the micro level.
In our day, only those countries or companies that succeed in making use of the knowledge they acquire can increase their gains. In this way, they rise to a position from which they will lead the others.
Economic power is gathering in the hands of the one who possesses knowledge. Knowledge that has grown old, that has lost its importance, that is in a sense “out of date”, is exported to weaker countries.
Nevertheless, of course, the opportunities to possess knowledge are not exhausted for undeveloped and developing economies.
Even though knowledge renews itself, and even though the knowledge acquired yesterday becomes “old knowledge” today, it is possible to join this caravan at some point.
For today every kind of knowledge has come to carry an economic value.
The indices developed for the purpose of comparing countries and of measuring their power confirm the weight of economic factors within national power.
For example, according to the Comprehensive National Power* index, the weight of economic factors within national power is at the level of %41, while military capacity remains at the level of %10.
According to the same index, the weight of natural resources within total national power is only %8.
In the 20th century, the countries and companies that owned, produced, processed and traded oil fields held power in their hands.
In the 21st century, however, we are speaking of the power of the countries and companies that possess the source of knowledge, that produce knowledge and that trade in it.
Therefore, the acquisition of knowledge in the commercial, technological or financial sense and the securing of advantage in matters such as investment, R&D, production and competition is an issue we must address with seriousness.
This process, which we may describe as an economic knowledge network, expresses the transfer of the most accurate and most useful knowledge at the most accurate time.
In our day, when we feel the effect of trade wars more strongly with each passing day, the flow of economic and commercial information is more important than ever.
Therefore, the tight competition experienced in global trade is pushing all actors to take a number of measures.
For this reason, while trade and technology wars continue among the world's major centres of power, we too must analyse well what we need to do and take action as soon as possible.
At the head of these requirements comes forming research units based on an economic knowledge network
and thereby making very good use of the opportunities that will increase exports towards our countries.
So, what can an economic knowledge network provide us?
First of all, it strengthens our hand at such an important point as the transfer of accurate information. It makes it possible to eliminate probable risks. And this is a matter at least as important as the transfer of information.
On the other hand, there is a matter that constitutes an important danger for undeveloped and developing countries: economic attacks coming from outside!
The identification, the evaluation and the prevention of every kind of economic attack depends on the sound operation of the economic and commercial information network.
Even though it is perceived as a concept belonging to our own day, the roots of the economic and commercial information network go back very far.
Caravanserais, one of our cultural and historical heritages, are a very fine example at this point.
These structures, built to meet the need of caravans for accommodation within the city, also served as a “centre for the collection and distribution of commercial information”.
As MÜSİAD, today we provide service with 224 contact points abroad and 311 in total.
In order to sustain this tradition and to carry it still further, we are continuing to expand our organizational network.
Today we see that the IBF too, with the same goal and the same belief, is bringing together the business people of 25 countries. Therefore this roof as well holds enormous potential at the point of ensuring the accurate and rapid flow of information among members, and of processing and transforming that information.
The IBF is MÜSİAD's long-standing and true fellow traveller. As business people who know the value of companionship on the road, we must make the best use of the strength that being together gives.
Here I would also like to emphasize the great effort of the IBF, of the civil society organizations within it, and of its members.
I believe that these efforts, aimed at reaching the resources and the raw materials in other countries, at accessing new markets, and at creating national brands with the technological data obtained, must be supported.
Organized every year since 1995 and bringing together valued participants from different countries of the Islamic world, the IBF possesses an accumulation reaching a quarter of a century.
This accumulation creates a unique field of opportunity in moving economic and commercial information from its source to its recipient as rapidly as possible.
It is precisely at this point that the way is opened for a strong cooperation between MÜSİAD and the IBF as well.
As you know, MÜSİAD today possesses a strong global network.
The sphere of influence of a business organization present in 94 countries and reaching 224 points around the world demonstrates the necessity of this cooperation.
In other words, this strong business organization must, together with the IBF, form a strong body of cooperation.
I would like to touch briefly on what we, as MÜSİAD, as the IBF and as the business world, desire from this structure that is to be formed:
Rather than establishing a commercial network and an information network from scratch, bringing together two widespread structures already experienced in this matter so that they serve the same purpose,
Setting out from the aspect of the IBF being a cooperation, designing the whole Islamic geography as a brand-new bloc by strengthening the sharing of knowledge and information among them,
Bringing the IBF to the spirit of DAVOS and thereby realizing the quarter-century ideal,
Making the IBF and MÜSİAD diplomatic stakeholders in the name of an economic, commercial and social information network,
Expanding MÜSİAD's field reputation and the trade network it wishes to establish in the eyes of the IBF member countries.
Distinguished Guests,
As you know, as MÜSİAD we have launched the Renewal process.
A powerful transformation is taking place in the world. In other words, the age we are living in is an important turning point for the future.
One of the results this transformation in the world has produced is the change of economic balances. Along with it, we are witnessing a struggle for power in the world.
Countries are making their future plans accordingly, and states are taking their measures within this framework.
As you know, Türkiye too became a partner in this transformation by changing its own habits of governance.
And we, as MÜSİAD, have launched our own institutional and structural transformations in order to facilitate and accelerate the functioning of the system.
We are carrying out this change, which we call Renewal, while remaining faithful to the values to which we have been attached for 30 years and to our founding purposes.
We summarize the renewal process, which expresses a long journey, as changing our own paradigms of management and implementation.
Renewal was begun in order to make MÜSİAD's field of influence and power more effective and more productive.
On the other hand, one of the reasons feeding the emergence of the renewal process is the obligation to develop cooperation.
We raised Renewal on the foundation of the motto “TOGETHER”.
A common ideal, common values and ultimately common data; MÜSİAD and the IBF together!
MÜSİAD, which in the new period has taken on a dynamic structure, aims to produce more projects and to carry out a close follow-up process for these projects.
In other words, we are now putting forward pioneering projects that do not remain at the idea stage.
In the new period as well, we will continue to process and to produce all the data we have gathered by keeping our finger on the pulse of the field, in line with the interests of our country and above all of our members.
I would also like to emphasize one point without skipping over it:
When we say cooperation, we are not pointing to a single field. We will develop our togetherness in many fields. Investments, for example, are also a manifestation of the culture of cooperation. We will increase our investments.
Esteemed Guests,
While we are in these beautiful lands in which he was raised, I would like to commemorate the Wise King once again:
Aliya İzzetbegoviç says, “In order to be the teacher of the earth, one must be the student of the heavens.”
While we share what we know and what we have experienced, we do not let go of being students; we follow the path of our faith and of the values to which we are attached.
With these feelings, I hope that our business forum will be a means to auspicious and blessed works, and I greet you all with respect and affection. May God protect you.
Abdurrahman Kaan
President of MÜSİAD
- Comprehensive National Power-CNP