MÜSİAD VISIONARY '23 Launch Meeting

Esteemed members of the press,

Dear MÜSİAD Family,

Welcome, all of you, to our MÜSİAD VISIONARY '23 press launch.

With the VISIONARY Summit, which we hold every two years and whose fifth edition we will realize this year, we open different doors onto the business world for our participants, offer new ideas and guide them towards making the most of the business opportunities of the future.

Our VISIONARY summits, which we as MÜSİAD held for the first time in 2015, have attracted enormous interest over the passing years and have reached a great many participants. Day by day they widened their sphere of influence; with their national and international participants alike, and with their programme and content, they became the closely followed and eagerly awaited summit of their own field.

At our VISIONARY '23 Summit, which we will hold on Saturday 4 November at the TİM Show Center, we expect a very fine attendance and level of interest, God willing. For that reason we wanted to hold such a launch meeting for you, our most valued members of the press. 4 There is important content that we wish to share regarding the details of our programme.

Esteemed Members of the Press,

Before going into the details of our VISIONARY '23 Summit, I think it is necessary to touch upon a very important matter.

As you know, a great human tragedy has been taking place in Gaza for the past ten days. There is no human right left untrampled and no war crime or crime against humanity left uncommitted. Innocent civilians are being treated barbarically in a manner contrary to international conventions and to the law. With each passing day we continue to receive bad news from the region. Because of the intense air strikes and bombardments carried out by Israel, hardly one stone has been left standing upon another in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced within their own city again and again; they have become refugees, oppressed and victimized.

Israel is engaged in an assault that observes no target whatsoever and is aimed entirely at terrorizing… Civilian settlements, places of worship, hospitals and educational institutions in Gaza have been levelled to the ground. The infrastructure system has been brought down… People's electricity and water have been cut off… People have been left without food and without water…

Israel is carrying out what is almost a planned campaign of genocide in Gaza. It is impossible to remain silent in the face of this situation. Wherever in the world an innocent civilian suffers oppression, we cannot remain silent about it.

We, as MÜSİAD, condemn the attacks on Gaza and this massacre committed against humanity. We make a call for justice to all the actors in the region, so that the war may be ended, peace in the region may be secured and the crimes against humanity being committed may be halted at once. We call upon Israel to comply with international law and to put an end to these inhuman attacks against civilians.

We invite our members, the Islamic World and international actors to stand against these inhuman attacks, to support the just cause of the Palestinians and to take part in the aid campaigns for Palestine. Everyone who remains silent in the face of this oppression and stands by as a spectator to this inhuman treatment will become party to this barbarity. History and future generations will judge all the actors and societies that witness this oppression today and fail to take action.

Esteemed Members of the Press,

We must oppose this massacre with a loud voice. We must stand as one and together beside the oppressed. Only so long as we are one and together, so long as we are strong, can we stand upright against injustice beside the oppressed… Only in this way can we make our struggle stronger.

For, as we all know very well, being strong comes through having a say in economic terms… If being strong means having a say on the whole world stage in politics and in diplomacy, then the way to it lies through possessing economic power and economic independence.

And the way to that is to strengthen domestic production and to make it prevail at all times. As we have always emphasized as MÜSİAD, we must strengthen domestic production and support domestic production. The strength of Anatolian capital, which is composed entirely of lawful earnings, will become far more effective when domestic production is brought to the fore.

Only if there is domestic production will we be strong in the economy… And if we are strong in the economy, we can support the oppressed, those in difficulty and those in need throughout the world.

In this way our country will become far stronger and will have a greater say, both in its region and in the world, as a global political actor. For I should like to emphasize once again that what constitutes real power is, above all, the capacity to hold economic power in one's hands.

And we, as Muslims, must work harder, earn more through lawful means and invest.

What will make us strong is our being one and together. Not you, I, he; if we become “We”, we can bring out our own strength. Only if we are “we” can no power stand before us and can we become those who truly have a say.

If we are together and strong, we can intervene in the war and the human tragedy that is taking place. If we want to support our brothers and sisters in Palestine, we must be strong. In short, we must believe in “the Power of We” and in the might of collective action…

Collective Action Is a Matter for the Whole Country

The one and only road map that will enable our country to reach more easily the goals our President announced with the Century of Türkiye vision, that will enable the economy and the business world to overcome more easily the obstacles that arise before them, and that will carry successes and gains further forward is: “Collective Action”.

The most effective way of resolving such matters as sharing knowledge, supporting one another, making up for shortcomings, advancing by acting together and minimizing risks lies through collective action. With the power of collective action it will be possible to sustain our existing successes, to reach the successes we aim for and to go beyond them.

Esteemed Members of the Press;

This year, God willing, we will hold the fifth of our VISIONARY summits, which we have been holding every two years since 2015…

As its name suggests, our VISIONARY Summit is in fact a meeting at which various projections about the business world of the future are made. Through these meetings of ours we gain the chance to acquire innovative ideas and to have foresight about the working life of the future.

MÜSİAD VISIONARY aims to address the changes required by the business world of the future and to increase cooperation continuously. In this way, by bringing together the leaders and the thinkers of the business world, it focuses on discussing innovative ideas and on shaping the business strategies of the future.

The motto of this year's summit, as I said a moment ago, emphasizes being one and together: “The Power of We”…

At our previous summits the slogans “Doing Business with the Future”, “Transformation”, “Digital Future” and “Take Notice” came to the fore, and sessions highlighting these themes were held at our summit. We aim to carry the vision of the future that we built step by step at our previous summits to another dimension at this year's summit.

Esteemed Members of the Press,

At the end of our summit we will produce a report. We have begun the work on this report. God willing, at VISIONARY '23 we will also share with the public this report, to which all our participants will have been party and given concrete contribution. The content of our report will consist entirely of concrete outputs. In order to set out these concrete outputs of which I speak more clearly, we have also determined a road map for ourselves. I should like to tell you about our road map in its broad outlines…

In order to turn the goal of the Century of Türkiye into reality, we as MÜSİAD will prepare a road map so that collective power may be kept alive rationally in every field. In order to carry existing successes further forward and to reach new goals, we aim to follow a two-stage path. The first of these two stages is how MÜSİAD will realize collective power within itself, how it will turn its sector boards into collective power and how it will instil the culture of being collective in its members. As for the second stage, as MÜSİAD we aim to create a road map in the nature of a proposal as to how the culture of being collective may be spread to the whole of society, from the public sector to the business world and from entrepreneurship to education. In this way:

  • By reinterpreting communication between people, we will make it possible to act with a collective consciousness.
  • With this collective consciousness, together with the mass measures that can first be taken, we will address global problems such as the climate crisis and water and air pollution.
  • By ensuring that technology is collectively accessible and can be used correctly, we will carry technological developments to a higher level through collective action.
  • Thanks to these three steps, we will be able to undertake innovative ventures with a high success rate and success multiplier through collective action in entrepreneurship.
  • And in the traditional sphere too, particularly as in the MÜSİAD model, we will achieve social development through collective action in trade.

Valued Members of the Press,

At our MÜSİAD VISIONARY '23 event, which we will hold this year under the theme “THE POWER OF WE”, the strength that collective action adds to the business world will be addressed.

With VISIONARY '23, at which the leaders of the business world will come together and share their ideas and thoughts in order to promote a strong culture of cooperation, and at which we will emphasize the importance of being “we”, we will, God willing, discuss and assess the effect of collective consciousness and of a collective working culture in a great many fields, from trade to human relations and from entrepreneurship to the solution of the climate crisis.

As I bring my words to a close, I hope that our VISIONARY '23 Summit will be a means to good things for our country, for the world and for our future.

I thank you very much for your attendance and greet you all with respect and esteem.

May God protect you.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD