Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

TOBB and Turkic CCI President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, Turkic Council Secretary-General Baghdad Amreyev, Azerbaijan Confederation of Owners (ASK) President Mammad Musayev attended the Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Forum, which was established to support the development of bilateral trade and investment relations between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Hungary, and was organized within the scope of the 3rd General Assembly of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  Nariman Abilshaikov, 1^st Vice President of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ATAMEKEN), Dr Adham Ikramov, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan, and Roman Kasymov, 1^st Senior Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Kyrgyz Republic, were also present.

TOBB and Turkic CCI President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu addressed the importance of co-operation in his speech at the Business Forum. Reminding that the “8th Leaders' Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking Countries” will take place on Friday, November 12^th, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We, as the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, wanted to come together as a business community to mark this Summit. On the one hand, we want to compile the opinions and suggestions of the business world and transfer them to the Summit. On the other hand, we bring our companies together to provide an environment for them to have business meetings.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they established the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the agreement they signed in Nur-Sultan in 2019 and reported that in a short time, the Chamber became one of the most effective institutional structures of the Turkic Council family.

“It is our duty to systematically make the close cooperation between the businessmen of our countries systematic. Reminding that it would be useful for TOBB to handle this work together with the chambers of commerce and industry of Turkic-speaking countries, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Praise Allah, we have realized this great project. Shortly after its establishment, despite Covid-19, we organized 5 major business forums: Tashkent, Baku-Karabakh and Budapest. During the Karabakh war, our heads of the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry went to Baku and supported the people of Azerbaijan in this rightful conflict.”

- Let's liberate trade

TOBB and Turkic CCI President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu called for making trade between them more liberal with preferential trade agreements. “We have done this with Azerbaijan. The Preferential Trade Agreement came into force on March 1, 2021. Our mutual investments are over $30 billion. Our trade volume is also moving rapidly towards the goal of $15 billion. We should be able to add service trade to our bilateral trade. There is also an opportunity for serious cooperation between our countries in the service sector. We need an agreement that will facilitate the trade of services.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu mentioned that an international standard “Arbitration” is needed to attract investors to the country, and before Turkey accepted arbitration, foreign direct capital investment was only $1 billion a year and increased to more than $10 billion after its adoption.

- Remove transit quotas

Hisarcıklıoğlu said: “Another issue is standardizing customs processes and accelerating crossings. We must set common standards in customs procedures and make processes simple and fast.

We need to get to the e-truck system together. Like the Caspian Sea, we must use a very important crossing point in a more active and less costly way. If we do these things, we will also make the ‘middle corridor,’ that is, our region, stand out in the transports on the China-Europe line. In this context, we should also remove the transit quotas for each other.

More trade is provided with more entrepreneurs and the stronger private sector. In order to develop entrepreneurship and the private sector in our countries, we also need a strong Chamber system. Turkey has significant achievements and experience in this regard. We are ready to share these with you.

In addition, in this context, we need to encourage and promote entrepreneurship among women and young people.

As TOBB, we have been working very actively in this field since 2007. Our women's and young entrepreneurial boards have become among the largest organizations in Europe. With their projects, trainings and studies, the number of women and young entrepreneurs has increased.

In today's General Assembly, our Women Entrepreneurs Board held its first meeting

On the other hand, we need new projects in the field of information and software, where we can improve our cooperation.

In this regard, I attach great importance to the work of Kazakhstan's Astana Financial Center – Astana Hub.

In addition, many technoparks established in our country in recent years provide services to improve this cooperation.  Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan are also working on this issue.

The future is in software and computing.  There are also serious opportunities for cooperation in this area."

- Developing priority business relationships

Baghdad Amreyev, Secretary General of the Turkic Council, said in his speech that the priority is to improve business relations. “We are working to achieve a free trade regime. I hope we can provide more. From time to time, we hold meetings at the level of ministers of economy and trade. Half the institutions in each country are already related to the economy. Our only goal is to help the business world.”

As a fund, they want to create an investment bank for the Turkic world, Akreyev said. First of all, we started with preferential agreements in trade and we will complete it within a year. Secondly, we will work on a free trade agreement in services and investments. At the same time, we want the creation of Turkic trading houses."

After the meeting, bilateral meetings were held between member state business people.