The second of the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MÜSİAD) Annual Evaluation Meetings was held at the MÜSİAD Head Office with the participation of Minister of Trade of the Republic of Türkiye Prof. Dr. Ömer Bolat.

MÜSİAD held the second of this year's meetings, which it organizes with the relevant ministers in the first month of every year, at the MÜSİAD Head Office with Minister of Trade Prof. Dr. Ömer Bolat and his team of deputy ministers. At the meeting, attended by Deputy Ministers of Trade Özgür Volkan Ağar and Mahmut Gürcan, problems concerning commercial life were discussed and consultations were held with a common mind.

The programme, which began with the opening speech of MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı, continued with Minister Bolat's presentation and remarks. The question-and-answer session and the general consultation session then took place under the chairmanship of Minister Bolat, Deputy Ministers Özgür Volkan Ağar and Mahmut Gürcan, and MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı.

“As MÜSİAD we are ready to put our shoulder to the wheel”

At the beginning of his speech at the programme, MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı referred to the massacre taking place in Gaza and said that he once again condemned Israel. Stating that the situation in Gaza should never be forgotten and must always be kept on the agenda, Asmalı said, “We will not allow it to fall off the agenda. We will continue to explain the Palestine and Gaza issue on every platform, to stand together with our oppressed Palestinian brothers and sisters, and to run campaigns.”

Speaking about MÜSİAD's contributions to domestic and foreign trade from the past to the present, Asmalı emphasized that they would always strive to do better, saying, “We express that, as always, we are ready to put our shoulder to the wheel so that the Century of Türkiye makes a start worthy of its name.”

Asmalı continued his remarks as follows:

“As businesspeople and members of the trade community, alongside lawful earnings we are filled with the eagerness and passion of carrying our country higher economically. Therefore, what falls to us is to work for the development of our country; to produce more, to invest, and thereby to create employment.

Thanks be to God, as MÜSİAD we have to date carried out many fine projects in terms of creating employment and increasing investment. In 2024 and in the periods that follow, these efforts of ours will, God willing, continue to grow.”

“The Turkish economy continues to grow”

In his speech at the programme, President Asmalı also shared the figures of the year-end survey traditionally conducted with MÜSİAD members. Emphasizing that the responses to the survey, which consists of 24 different questions on members' trade volumes and profit rates, are equivalent to the Turkish economy data, Asmalı continued as follows:

“Despite these earthquakes, described as the “Disaster of the Century”, the Turkish economy showed great resilience by growing %4 in the first quarter of the year, and it sustained this performance in the second quarter as well, growing %3.9 and achieving positive decoupling within the global economy. Finally, growing %5.9 in the third quarter of the year, the Turkish economy managed to become the 2nd fastest-growing country in the G20 in that period after India, thus recording growth for 13 consecutive quarters and achieving a significant success. At a time such as this, when our country, together with the leading economies, is confronting the problem of inflation and is in a monetary tightening process, the acceleration of the Turkish economy's growth is a development that deserves appreciation.
The first question we put to our members was in what direction their domestic sales in 2023 had changed compared with the previous year. While % 42.4 of our members who took part in our survey answered “Increased”, the share of those who answered “Decreased” is % 39.7. As will be recalled, in the % 5.9 GDP growth for the first 9 months of the year, the contribution of domestic consumption was 10.5 points, whereas the weakening in the 3rd quarter had drawn attention. In this context, we can state that % 42.4 of our members who took part in the survey supported the domestic demand-driven growth of the Turkish economy.”

“Our target for 2024 is USD 375 billion”

Emphasizing the change Türkiye underwent between 1980 and 2023, Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat said, ‘’In 1980 we were a country with a national income of USD 67.5 billion, 262,000 registered companies, only 1,000 exporters and a total of USD 2.9 billion in exports. Later, in 2023, we managed to become a country with a national income of USD 1.1 trillion, a per capita national income of USD 12,521, 140,000 exporters and USD 255.8 billion in exports, 2,346,000 companies and 2,224,000 tradesmen’’.

Minister Bolat continued his speech as follows:

“As our President announced last week, in 2023 Türkiye's total goods exports amounted to USD 255.8 billion, and this was recorded as the record of the history of the Republic. In addition, we are targeting our total goods and services exports to reach USD 375 billion in 2024. While our defence industry exports were only USD 248 million in 2002, by 2023 they had reached the level of USD 5.5 billion with a full 21-fold increase. In this period, the number of our companies also rose 40-fold from 56 to over 2,000. Even when we look only at these headings, we understand that Türkiye's face has changed. From now on too, with the support of you esteemed businesspeople and friends, we will continue to advance at a run towards the targets we have set for our country's development.

As the Ministry of Trade, we continue to provide our business world with every kind of support they need. Starting with our SMEs, we provide support to our exporters at every level and at every stage and step of exporting, from preparation for export to marketing, from establishing distribution channels abroad to becoming a global brand.

Within this scope, we provided our companies with TRY 11.7 billion in support for goods exports in 2023. In 2024 we will increase this figure much further, to approximately double. As for services exports, we provided our companies with a total of TRY 2.5 billion this year and, since 2012, more than TRY 5 billion, primarily in the information technology, technical consultancy, series-film, health, logistics and education sectors. For 2024 we have set aside a resource of TRY 5.1 billion for our service-exporting companies.

In order to broaden and support our exporting companies' access to finance, we are working intensively with Türk EXİMBANK and İGE A.Ş. to facilitate our exporters' access both to credit and to guarantees for credit. In addition to these steps, as a result of the joint work our Ministry has carried out with our Central Bank, we increased the daily limit of rediscount credits 10-fold to TRY 3 billion. Again within this scope, we granted our exporters the opportunity to use rediscount credit below the policy interest rate. No matter how much the geopolitical risks in our region may have increased, our sole aim is to protect and further develop our country's economic and commercial gains.”

After the opening speeches, the programme continued with the consultation meeting held by MÜSİAD members with Minister Bolat, the deputy ministers and MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı. At the meeting, where questions concerning sectoral and export problems in commercial life were conveyed, emphasis was placed on the common mind.