Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

TOBB Vice President Tamer Kıran and ICC Secretary General John Denton delivered the opening speeches of the meeting.

In his speech, Tamer Kıran reminded that the Russia-Ukraine war was on the world agenda immediately after the Covid-19 global pandemic, and said that “We consider Russia's attack on Ukrainian territory unacceptable.” Stressing that they are in favor of respecting Ukraine's sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity, Kıran said, “On the other hand, Russia and Ukraine are our close neighbors. Both are important trading partners.

Therefore, we carefully monitor the negative effects of this war on the Turkish economy. On the other hand, the sanctions that Western countries have begun to impose against Russia directly affect the global trade and financial structure. In the coming period, in the medium and long term, it is not easy to predict how these sanctions will transform the global economy.

We benefit from the business world and related segments coming together to examine this issue in depth.”

- Importance of common sense

Tamer Kıran mentioned that both the transformation of the global supply chain after the pandemic and the steps taken within the framework of the Green Deal and climate change include important opportunities and threats. For this purpose, it is necessary to further tighten the public-private dialogue and to be among the winning countries in this process with common sense in cooperation with international institutions and organizations.”

TOBB Vice President Tamer Kıran said: “Carbon-based and polluting economic growth models must now change. That means a greener economy. You have to be ready for the green transformation. Finally, we need a fairer and more global trading architecture. We need to strengthen rules-based international trade. Because the most important tool for poverty reduction and development is trade. A balanced increase in global trade will reduce the likelihood of conflict. This requires open and predictable international trade. It is very valuable and important for the ICC to guide the business world in order to recover global trade after this global crisis. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the largest business organization in the world working to increase trade and investment, has taken many steps to improve global trade in a balanced way and to remove barriers to trade.”

- Breathing solutions are needed

Kıran, who gave information about the establishment of the ICC and explained that the Institution was founded by a group of entrepreneurs with the slogan "traders of peace" in order to mitigate the damage that World War 1 has done to international trade, underlined that new, creative and breathing solutions can be found with common sense in order to recover global trade. “During this period, we focused on the development of entrepreneurship in Turkey. As TOBB, ICC and ICC National Committee of Turkey, we established the ‘ICC Entrepreneurship Center – Istanbul Regional Office’ in order to contribute to the development of entrepreneurship activities in Turkey and the region. We became the first ICC-established Center. Together with TOBB – ETU, we will continue to organize comprehensive and at the same time focused trainings that address entrepreneurship in every sense.  At the same time, entrepreneurship centers within the ICC are increasing day by day. We would like to take this opportunity to wish the entrepreneurship center that the ICC opened in Ukraine last week to be auspicious. I am confident that the country will make a significant contribution to entrepreneurs in the recovery process. As İstanbul Entrepreneurship Center, I would like to state that we are open to cooperation."

- ICC Secretary General John Denton

ICC Secretary General John Denton said that some investments are present in Turkey and that they are very satisfied with these investments.

Denton stated that he is happy to be in Turkey, “We are ready to invest more in this sense of Turkey with strong macroeconomic foundations. It's nice to be here all the time. That's what I say this both as an investor and as a friend,” he said.

Denton recalled that they established the İstanbul Regional Office of the ICC Entrepreneurship Center, “We want to invest more in entrepreneurship here. It shines a light on us globally. We consider this as part of a global movement and want to create the largest global ecosystem in terms of entrepreneurship. We want to activate it worldwide. We want entrepreneurs in Turkey to be able to talk to entrepreneurs in Ghana or we want them to talk to entrepreneurs in Jakarta. This is happening within the ICC as a unique platform. We will lead such transformations in the future.”

- “We don't know what the results will be at this time”

Denton stated that the pandemic is still ongoing in the world and that the Ukraine-Russia war has been added on top of this. We are also facing an unprecedented refugee crisis, and this is a situation that Turkey is very accustomed to and prepared for. Because it has been a generous host to so many refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We have now opened our doors to almost 5 million refugees here, and again there are many people displaced in Ukraine, and 80 percent of them are women and children of refugees. This is an extraordinary refugee crisis,” he said.

John Denton noted that no one will know exactly what the economic consequences of war and the refugee crisis will be, “I am talking about the 20^th and 21^st centuries in the history of the world, we have never seen economic sanctions of this magnitude. There is a sanction on the G20 economy and even Russia was in 11^th place until the crisis started. We've never seen sanctions on such a scale. In Italy, sanctions were imposed in 1935 because there was an invasion, it was Ethiopia, the crisis we faced at the time, and even then, the size of the economy was disproportionately small compared to today's Russia. In this sense, we do not know at this time what the consequences will be.”