The 8th International Young Businessmen Congress (UGİK’24), organized by Young MÜSİAD, took place with the theme “Global Harmony”. Speaking at the congress, Young MÜSİAD President Cahit Ertemel said, “We must bring forth from within ourselves a harmony that will embrace the whole world and spread it starting from our own country. This country has many advantages, above all the spiritual heritage our history has given us.”

Young MÜSİAD, which continues its activities with the mission of raising young people who possess the visionary business person’s spirit and perspective required by the age in a globalizing world, brought together many valuable business people, entrepreneurs and decision makers with UGİK’24. Held this year for the 8th time with the support of the Presidential Investment Office and hosted by Young MÜSİAD, UGİK offered an important perspective to today’s business world with the headings “Simplicity”, “Harmony” and “Opportunity”, the carriers of the main theme “Global Harmony”.

Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat: “We continue our work to support sustainable enterprises”
Speaking at UGİK’24, Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat referred to the founding period of Young MÜSİAD and said that the project had brought tens of thousands of business people to Türkiye. Noting that entrepreneurship begins at an early age, Bolat continued his remarks as follows:

"You represent Türkiye's entrepreneurial spirit and economic dynamism. I had a 3G slogan: 'Türkiye's Future equals our Entrepreneurs and our Youth.' I was pleased to see what successful work our young entrepreneurs, whose stands we visited a short while ago, are doing. As the Ministry of Trade, aiming to raise the potential of our young people and our entrepreneurs to the maximum level and to increase their international competitiveness, we continue our work to support sustainable enterprises. We can achieve this only with innovative products of high added value and high branding value, in terms of being able to export strongly and being sustainable. Our exports, which stood at USD 0.55 per kilogram in 2002, are at USD 1.37 today, and we will be able to raise this even higher with products of high added value and high brand value."

"From now on, the market for you is not just your own village, your region, your country, and that will not be enough"

Minister Bolat, touching on the effect of platforms such as UGİK on the entrepreneurship of young people, said that they would continue to stand by young people in all efforts to strengthen the Turkish economy. Pointing to the issues that should be taken into consideration within the framework of the "Global Harmony" theme, Bolat said, "From now on, the market for you is not just your own village, your town, your district, your city, your region, your country, and that will not be enough. You absolutely have to target the world and global markets as well. If you do not target them, competitors in the global market will come and force you to compete in your own country. If you do not go to their home, they will knock on your door."

Minister Osman Aşkın Bak: “Invest in Türkiye's future”

Minister of Youth and Sports Bak, who delivered the opening speech of UGİK’24, shared his memories with the young participants, recounting that he both studied and worked during his education abroad. Conveying that the scholarships he received from Türkiye had a very important place in his education abroad, Bak said the following:

"Under the leadership of our President, the Family and Youth Fund was established to support young entrepreneurs. From there, work will be carried out to support the entrepreneurship of our young people. We have technology workshops that we run in our youth centres. Young people who follow opportunities are being trained there. When I returned from abroad we were talking about artificial intelligence. Now there are many innovations. I particularly want to say something to you, to the members of Young MÜSİAD, to business people; invest in people, in young people, in children who study, in engineers, in the brilliant young people at university, in Türkiye's future. Here, I am one of the examples. I thank everyone who gave me a scholarship. Good things are happening in this country. Good things will continue to happen in the Century of Türkiye. Under the leadership of our President we will continue to grow, we will continue on our way as a Strong Türkiye. We trust our young people."

Minister of Youth and Sports Bak also touched on what is happening in Gaza at the end of his speech and said, "One is silent while children sleep; we must raise our voice while children are dying. At this point we thank MÜSİAD, Türkiye and our President very much. We condemn the genocide in Gaza. The struggle continues for the cause, for Jerusalem. Thank goodness you exist, MÜSİAD; thank goodness you exist, Türkiye."

MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı: “Young MÜSİAD is working in line with the vision of the Century of Türkiye”

MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı, who delivered the opening speech of the congress, said that UGİK aims to prepare from now on the young people who will take part in Türkiye’s vision for the future. Noting that Young MÜSİAD is the guarantee of MÜSİAD’s future, Asmalı said, “With the work it has carried out since the day it was founded, with the events it has organized and its comprehensive activities, Young MÜSİAD has always had a visionary perspective. The Commercial Diplomacy Workshop that Young MÜSİAD launched together with the vision of the Century of Türkiye draws our attention as a project worthy of appreciation. Working almost like an entrepreneurship centre, our Young MÜSİAD is carrying out quality work that will contribute to human capital in order to bring new commercial diplomacy experts into the sector,” he said.

Asmalı: “Palestine Is Our Red Line”

MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı clearly denied the claims put forward recently that MÜSİAD members trade with Israel. Asmalı continued his remarks as follows:
“Recently there have been certain efforts to denigrate this aid and these campaigns of ours. Various discourses that place MÜSİAD members under suspicion can emerge. Among these claims, the most serious is the assertion that our members have traded with the state of Israel after 7 October. On the occasion of this programme I would like to state once again that no such situation is in question. The trade there must be divided into two. The first is the trade carried out with Arab Muslim business people in the territories under Israeli occupation, and the second is the trade carried out with Zionism-supporting Jews. We state that there is no harm in trade within the first scope, as it is carried out so that nearly 7 million of our Palestinian brothers and sisters there can access basic needs. But we never find the trade falling within the second scope right, and I state here that it should not be carried out. On the other hand, we encourage and support our sincere and well-intentioned young people in our country to stand up for the Palestinian cause. As MÜSİAD, we will protect our young people, whose focus is sought to be turned in other directions with different motives, and we will defend our values together.

Young MÜSİAD President Cahit Ertemel: Our theme at UGİK 2024 is ‘The Global Harmony’

Noting that with UGİK they convey young people’s vision of the future in the business world, Young MÜSİAD President Cahit Ertemel referred to the theme of the congress and said the following: “We must bring forth from within ourselves a harmony that will embrace the whole world and spread it starting from our own country. This country has many advantages, above all the spiritual heritage our history has given us. But truly, perhaps the most important of these is our human wealth, a representation of which we see in this very hall. Our path is to increase and carry out the commercial work that we constantly conduct in the shade of the MÜSİAD plane tree and that looks to the same horizon as our country’s goals. Today the great MÜSİAD Family accounts for almost a quarter of our country’s gross national product. We are in times when the space industry, artificial intelligence and advanced technology are changing all the balances, and alongside this, when ever-decreasing resources and wars are being revived once again, above all in our own region.”

“With GM2 we are opening MÜSİAD’s strong hinterland to entrepreneurs”

Noting that they have launched GM2, the Young MÜSİAD Entrepreneurship Centre, which will take place within the association this term in order to show the importance they attach to entrepreneurs, Cahit Ertemel said, “The purpose of our Entrepreneurship Centre is for start-ups to grow and become global with the knowledge, capital and connections that MÜSİAD possesses. Its most important mission is to open MÜSİAD’s strong hinterland to entrepreneurs, to increase the turnover of start-ups and to support them in opening up to the world. Our centre, which will be connected with all the stakeholders in the ecosystem, will be a first with the field it focuses on and its working system. Our main goal here is to make İstanbul one of the world’s most important centres of entrepreneurship,” he said.

‘‘We have contributed more than USD 500 million!’’

Noting that as Young MÜSİAD they are the flag bearer of collective entrepreneurship, Ertemel completed his remarks as follows: "With the Young Trade Ambassadors project, by giving foreign trade training to international students in our country and bringing them together with companies, we have so far contributed more than USD 500 million to our country’s exports. In artificial intelligence, in digital solutions, in cyber security, in smart agriculture, in value-added industry and production, we as young people will carry this flag with our trade in Türkiye and in other countries. We are a very precious country with more than 38 million young people under the age of 30. The participation of young people in this age group in the information technologies economy, which has reached TRY 400 billion worldwide, will carry our country much further forward. That is precisely why our main focus is entrepreneurship."

Mağsum Usta: “With UGİK we will focus on the new concepts of a globalizing world”

Mağsum Usta, Young MÜSİAD Deputy Chairman and at the same time Chairman of the UGİK Executive Board, who delivered the opening speech of the congress, emphasized that UGİK’24 has the distinction of being the first young business people’s gathering of Türkiye’s second century, and stated that at this congress they would focus on the new concepts of a globalizing world. He underlined that with the theme “The Global Harmony" chosen as the main heading of the congress, they aim for different ideas and different cultures to come together and form a strong harmony.

Saying that, with the vision of creating together a more sustainable and more harmonious world, they had determined three subjects for themselves as the carriers of the main theme Global Harmony, namely Simplicity, Harmony and Opportunity, Usta said, “Simplicity focuses on capturing simplicity within complexity and reflecting this in business processes; Harmony concentrates on capturing accord within the discord created by change; and Opportunity clarifies the areas in which we can take action to see and seize the opportunity created by the changing of the rules globally,” he said.

Presidential Investment Office President Burak Dağlıoğlu Spoke at the Panel "Global Opportunities and Collective Entrepreneurship"

In his speech at the panel titled "Global Opportunities and Collective Entrepreneurship" held within the scope of the congress, Presidential Investment Office President Burak Dağlıoğlu said that Türkiye has attracted more than USD 260 billion in investment over the last 20 years and stated, "While before 2002 Türkiye was a country attracting only two per thousand of international direct investment movements in the world, in the period of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's leadership it became a country attracting roughly 1 percent of the investments in the world."

Expressing that Türkiye aims to be one of the world's top 10 economies in its second century, Dağlıoğlu explained that within the scope of reaching this target they want to raise the share taken from the international direct investment pie to 1.5 percent.
Expressing that Türkiye aims to be a country that is the centre of stability and diplomacy across a wide geography at a time when troubles and crises in the world are increasing, Dağlıoğlu said, "This perspective is present especially in recent investments. We see that investors have invested heavily in export-oriented businesses, particularly after the pandemic."

Business world representatives came together within the scope of UGİK’24

UGİK’24, which took place with the participation of many international figures from all over the world, brought together senior executives from the public and private sectors, entrepreneurs, investors, business world representatives, academia and the media, and many other stakeholders, along with nearly three thousand participants.

At the congress, prominent figures such as Enterprise Singapore Regional Director Yogeindran Thiayagarajah, Yıldız Holding Board Member Murat Ülker, Eyüp Sabri Tuncer Chairman of the Board Engin Tuncer, Arzum Chairman of the Board Murat Kolbaşı, Altınay Technology Chairman of the Board Hakan Altınay, Delta V General Manager Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arif Karabeyoğlu, Gürmen Group Board Member Yasemin Gür Solmaz and Baltaş Group Co-founder Prof. Dr. Acar Baltaş also came together at UGİK’24.

Among the speakers of the “Next Gen” panel, in which the inspiring ventures and success stories of young business people were recounted at the congress, were EasyCep CEO Mehmet Akif Özdemir and BinBin Co-founder Kadir Abdik.
At the “Next Era” panel, where those who see opportunities on a macro scale, bring them to life and plan their strategy were to be heard, figures such as Robert Bosch VC General Manager Luis Llovera, Marvell Technology President Raghip Hussain and HepsiGlobal General Manager Emin İmer shared their experience as speakers.

The congress came to an end after a tour of the Start-Up Lounge area of GM2, which was launched in the afternoon.