VISIONARY ANATOLIAN MEETINGS OPENING SPEECH
“Developing City Economies with New Tourism Resources”
KASTAMONU
5 JULY 2019
Honourable Deputy Minister,
Honourable Governor, Honourable Mayor,
Esteemed MÜSİAD Members and Friends,
Esteemed Members of the Press,
With the happiness of coming together once again at the Visionary Anatolian Meetings, I greet you with respect; welcome.
Distinguished Guests,
As business people who work with all their strength so that our country may attain a structure that grows by producing, coming together with the esteemed representatives of our business world and with you, our valued friends, has great meaning and value for us.
Because as MÜSİAD, while sharing knowledge and experience at these meetings, we complete one another; each of us shapes the road map it has set accordingly. Because we believe in growing together and in becoming stronger together.
As a business person you can do business at any point in the world and grow your business. While increasing your commercial gains, you can also grow your personal wealth. But when you do this on the axis of individual benefit,
Each of us has a debt to the land where we were born, to the future generations of these lands and to our nation, dear friends. We have to plan every step we take with this responsibility.
One of our beautiful proverbs in Anatolia says; “one hand washes another hand; two hands wash a face.”
As MÜSİAD, a structure that makes the prosperity of its homeland its own concern, we therefore express at every opportunity our belief in the power of standing together.
Coming together with business people in Anatolia above all and in the four corners of the world, we work for our common goals.
Alongside the commercial activities we carry out, we hold strong exchanges of ideas and share their outputs with our economic administration, with policy-makers and with the public.
MÜSİAD's success in organization and the strong bond between its members and its friends is a great privilege for us; but the data that MÜSİAD gathers thanks to this bond and its ability to process this data is one of the greatest indicators of its strength in the field.
It is for this reason that MÜSİAD stands at a key point in regional development, which is one of the important conditions for achieving holistic development.
On the one hand we are expanding our fields of activity all over the world, and on the other we are reaching every one of our cities by weaving a strong network in our country. Alongside general issues, we also identify local problems and develop solution proposals.
Unlike other NGOs, MÜSİAD makes a great contribution to regional development.
Thanks to its broad organizational network, MÜSİAD reaches micro data directly. In regional development, being able to obtain micro and macro data together is a great advantage.
We are the only NGO that can take micro information directly from the grassroots and process it; that is where our difference lies.
At this leg of the Visionary Anatolian Meetings, which we are holding in Kastamonu, we have determined our main topic as “Developing City Economies with New Tourism Resources”.
With its geographical position, its history and the natural beauties it contains, our country is one of the most fortunate and most advantageous regions of the world in terms of tourism.
Every one of our regions and every one of our cities holds its own particular tourism potential. There is now no obstacle before us to bringing this potential to light. In order to make a leap in tourism, we must act as soon as possible in a planned but rapid manner. It is possible for us to achieve this in the most correct way by evaluating each of our cities with its own characteristics.
Diversity and innovation in tourism must be among the subjects we particularly need to dwell upon in the coming period.
If it acts with a strong road map while putting the necessary practices into effect, Türkiye will use tourism, such a powerful driving force, as an effective instrument of development.
Esteemed guests,
In the recent period we have been witnessing the political mobility continuing throughout the world and a difficult period in economic terms.
As business people who set foot in every point of the world, we follow this process closely. Therefore the observations we make and the experience we gain are real as well as up to date.
When we take into consideration the finding that 2018 was a difficult year for the whole world, and the attacks directed at our country's economy last August, we see the reality that 2019 is a year of struggle against difficulties.
Türkiye, without remaining long in the shock of the attacks carried out through the exchange rate, interest rates and inflation, managed to overcome this process with the least damage thanks to the correct policies it swiftly implemented.
Before 2019, which was expected to be a difficult year in the context of the global economy and politics, our country began its own political and economic paradigm shift and, together with the New Economy Program that was put into practice, entered a process of rebalancing.
Today, although they are decreasing day by day, we acknowledge the existence of certain difficulties; but Türkiye, as in the similar experiences it has lived through in the past, will come out of this period stronger.
In this process we make a stronger call than ever to our business people; “trust yourselves, believe in your country's potential, do not hold back from your investments.”
Because we do not have the luxury of falling into pessimism. This geography in which we were born and raised is a geography that gives birth not to hopelessness but to hope, stronger again every day.
Therefore, immediately after Türkiye overcomes this period in a short time, it will enter a rapid process of development; we believe this. We will build a strong Türkiye all together.
Distinguished Guests,
At the end of my words, I wish that our Visionary Anatolian Meetings may bring goodness to our country and to our business world, and I thank everyone who has contributed to our organization.
I greet you all with my most sincere feelings and with respect.
Abdurrahman Kaan
President of MÜSİAD