Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

In his speech, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu said that they continue to guide women entrepreneurs from industry to agriculture, from foreign trade to e-commerce with the TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council.

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they have enabled women entrepreneurs to increase their competencies, digitalize, access finance and receive investments through collaborations with global companies, and continued:

“I would like to summarize our success over the years and how we have done the right thing with numbers. Immediately after the establishment of the TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council, that is, in 2008, while there was only 1 female chairman of the board of directors and council chairman in our community, today this number has increased to 9. In 2008, the number of women board members was 9, today this number has reached 56. The number of female council members increased from 93 in 2008 to 334. You see that women entrepreneurs are increasingly represented in all organs of our community.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out that the ratio of female employees of the companies applying to the competition to total employees is 49 percent, “So one of their two employees is a woman. Our companies that will receive awards in this category increased women's employment by 40 percent in the 2022-2023 period. Our winning company increased its female employment by 59 percent compared to last year.”

Referring to the applications in the category of “entrepreneurial women's power”, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Here, our women entrepreneurs, who grew the fastest, increased their exports the most, digitalized the most and were the most environmentally friendly, were evaluated according to their performance in the 2021-2023 period. Applications were made to this category from 19 different provinces. Our companies, which were entitled to receive an award in the 'fastest growing company' category, grew by an average of 836 percent in the 2021-2023 period. The growth rate of our winning company in this period is 2340 percent. 72 percent of our women entrepreneurs who applied to the competition in the category of 'the company that increased its exports the most' export to 55 different countries. The export amount of our company, which ranked first in this category, increased exactly 400 times.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu underlined that there is nothing that women cannot do if given the opportunity and said, “I wholeheartedly applaud all of our women entrepreneurs. You are success stories that everyone can look up to. You are role models for all women and a source of inspiration for them. I say it at every opportunity, intelligence and success have no gender, if women are strong, society and the country will be strong.”

- Minister of Family and Social Services Göktaş

Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş said that the commonality of all the guests in the hall was to create change.

“If there are women, there is a future,” Göktaş said, adding that women's entrepreneurship is the cornerstone of not only economic development but also social transformation.

Stating that a business raised by a woman benefits not only herself and her family but also her environment, her country and even the world, Göktaş said: “Ensuring equal participation of women in all areas of social, political, economic and cultural life is the key to the total development of our country. With this belief, as the Ministry, we are taking steps to ensure that women are more involved in employment, entrepreneurship, decision-making and representation mechanisms. Within the framework of the targets set out in our 12^th Development Plan, we continue our efforts to increase the female labor force participation rate to 40.1 percent and the female employment rate to 36.2 percent by the end of 2028.”

Göktaş said that within the scope of the Women's Empowerment Strategy Document and Action Plan, they have set targets for vocational training programs that will increase women's participation in employment, entrepreneurship supports, policies to strengthen gender equality in working life and flexible working models.

Explaining that they created the web page “kadingirisimci.gov.tr” in order to reach more women by gathering the work of various institutions on a single platform to support women entrepreneurship, Göktaş continued as follows

“We reached 750,000 people in 81 provinces with the Financial Literacy and Women's Economic Empowerment Seminars we provided in 2018-2023. Within the scope of the protocol we signed with the Capital Markets Board this year, we aim to raise awareness on financial literacy and expand trainings. With the Women's Empowerment through Cooperatives Project, we encourage women to participate more effectively in economic and social life. Within the scope of the project, we conduct training, consultancy and awareness-raising activities to increase participation in existing cooperatives, improve women's capacities and increase employment. On November 15, we signed a cooperation protocol with Hepsiburada to promote women's entrepreneurship and strengthen women's cooperatives. With this cooperation, we will carry out activities that will contribute to increasing women's skills and activities, especially in the field of e-commerce.”

Stating that they have offered good opportunities for over 1,200 female students to develop their talents with the Engineer Girls of Türkiye Project, Göktaş said that they have supported 400 women to develop their talents in these fields with the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Development Program for Women, which was launched in October for young women who are neither in education nor in employment.

Minister Göktaş emphasized that a very important progress has been made in increasing women's employment under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and said, “With the decisive steps taken, the female employment rate in our country has increased to 32.5 percent and the labor force participation rate of women to 37.4 percent. We continue to work with all our efforts to carry these gains we have achieved to a higher point. In this sense, your determination, solidarity and contributions are our greatest source of motivation in increasing women's employment and strengthening social welfare. Each of you is a leader and a guide in this field.”

TOBB KGK President Nurten Öztürk said that it is everyone's duty to support women entrepreneurs. Explaining that they provide all kinds of support for women entrepreneurs to become world brands, Öztürk said, “I would like to emphasize that we should sign more projects together to support our women and entrepreneurs. Encouraging women entrepreneurship and ensuring that women take more place in the business world is not only a social responsibility, but also a critical step for our economic development.”

- Companies that received awards in Türkiye's Entrepreneurial Women Power Competition

I- Company that Increased Women's Employment the Most

1st FOCUS KONTROL

2nd MAN TÜRKİYE

3rd UNIARCH CLINICAL ENGINEERING

II- Entrepreneurial Women Power

The Most Environmentally Friendly Women Entrepreneur Company

RVM SYSTEMS MACHINE

The Most Digitalized Women Entrepreneur Company

G TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION

The Women Entrepreneur Company that Increased Exports the Most

AK CELEP COTTON FOOD AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

The Women Entrepreneur Company that Increased Exports the Fastest

BADE FABRIC TEXTILE GARMENT

1^st Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

DG DIRECT RECOVERY

2^nd Fastest Growing Female Entrepreneur Company

MORCADDE E-COMMERCE

3^rd Fastest Growing Female Entrepreneur Company

MAYI SALT MINING

4^th Fastest Growing Female Entrepreneur Company

BONETA

5^th Fastest Growing Female Entrepreneur Company

OFM CARPET FURNITURE

6^th Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

INOVMAK MAKİNA

7^th Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

PREFİ PREFABRİK YAPI INDUSTRY

8^th Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

POLYETTA AGRICULTURE

9^th Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

TEKBA GIDA

10^th Fastest Growing Women Entrepreneur Company

ASIA INTEGRATED WASTE MANAGEMENT

III - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Category

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce Company with the Highest Increase in Female Employment

MERCADO GIDA GROUP COMPANIES

Turkish Republic of Cyprus Chamber of Commerce Most Environmentally Friendly Female Entrepreneur Company

BMP TRADE

Turkish Republic of Cyprus Chamber of Commerce Most Digitized Female Entrepreneur Company

CHERRY RED ADVERSITING

Turkish Republic of Cyprus Chamber of Commerce Fastest Growing Female Entrepreneur Company

NECAT GROUP