Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Attending the meeting opened with the speech of the Ambassador to Rome, Hakkı Akil, were President Abdullah Gül, Italian Industrialists Union President Giorgio Squinzi, TOBB/DEİK President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, Italian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Carlo Caldena and Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan.

TOBB/DEİK President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu began his speech by thanking President Gül for bringing the Turkish and Italian business communities together.

Stating that they put great importance on this visit as the business world, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We want to begin a new era of economic relations with Italy and move towards concrete goals. Italy is very important for us. Turkey must increase trade with Italy in order to increase its sphere of business in Europe.”

Emphasizing that they are greatly pleased to see the recovery progress in the European economy, Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they hope to see an increasingly faster recovery.

Hisarcıklıoğlu reported that they expect Italy to switch to a period of growth in the next 10 years and said that Europe is in need of such a driving force. He went on state that this was the main reason for increased Turkish investments in Turkey.

Stating that they, Turkey and the Turkish business community, have two important characteristics to consider, Hisarcıklıoğlu went on to say that the first of these characteristics is robustness against crises, as well as rapid recovery from them. Secondly, they are able to easily do business with high growth potential regions such as the Central Asia and Middle East.

Reporting that Europe and the USA have only just begun to recover from the 2008 crisis, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Europe’s growth rates during that period are nearly zero. While we, despite the global crisis, achieved 20% real growth for Turkey in the last 6 years. Europe saw the loss of 6 million jobs while we provided 4 million new jobs with 3.5 million of them being provided by the private sector. The representatives of the private sector you see here today achieved this.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu noted that these successes have been accomplished while their biggest trade partner, Europe was undergoing economic crisis and while their neighbors in the Middle East were experiencing political upheaval.

Hisarcıklıoğlu invited Italian businessmen to invest in Turkey and said, “Take advantage of this production environment and the comprehensive incentives. We bid you to come and profit. We invite you to trade more with Turkey.”

Stating that they are very knowledgeable in doing business in their region and which fields are profitable, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We have strong contacts. We undertake large investments. We provide the industrial goods of the region; we transport them. We are constructing the infrastructure and superstructure projects of the construction sector.

With sufficient capital, we are ready to do bigger things. As the political situation matures in the near future, profits will increase. This means that there are great opportunities for Italian companies which do business with Turkey in both domestic markets and export markets.

We want to work and profit together with Italian companies in all sectors, in third countries. We want to trade more.”