INTERVIEWER HASAN YAŞAR
Mr. Chairman, Thank you very much for this interview. Although you have a busy agenda, you were very kind to accept us for reaching to GCC citizens once again by means of us… We
are grateful … bWe are in the last days of 2016. How did it go
this year?
MB: We are leaving behind a difficult year in which terrorism and violence were seen extremely in the neighboring geography, terrorist activities including the treacherous coup attempt on July 15th aimed at the peace in our country, and significant fluctuations were seen in the economy due to local and global dynamics. Due to unfortunate developments in 2016, terrorist incidents, and the ongoing uncertainty in the global economy, we have hard times in terms of exports. The treacherous coup attempt had negative effects in our economy and in our foreign trade. All these negativities have shown that the Turkish economy is a powerful economy that is far from financial fragility, that has development goals and that is determined in overcoming these goals. We have witnessed that every obstacle brought against the development of our country can be eliminated with the civil society, business world, and the Turkish nation. We, as the family of 65,000 exporters, expressed that our state would not be off track of its ideals and that every single obstacle would strengthen our will in every occasion. Again, we proved once more that we would react with difficulties with our ever-increasing effort and our zeal. On the other hand, global trade has continued to contract in 2016 just like in 2015 on basis of dollar. Based on the quantity, the world trade has experienced the lowest growth rate of the last 15 years in 2016 except for 2009. The slowdown in emerging economies and the decline in commodity prices were effective in this recession. How has Turkey been affected by this “economic recession” and “shrinkage” as you have stated?
MB: While all these developments are taking place, it is not possible to evaluate the Turkish economy independent from global developments. According to the latest figures declared by the WTO, world trade shrank by 4.1% in the first nine months of 2016. According to the export figures, SouthKorea shrank by 8.5%, the UK by 12.3%, Russia by 23.4%, China by 8.2%, and the US
by 5%. Despite all these negativities, it is obvious that our country has a positive performance compared to other countries. We can see the successful performance of Turkey in exports from the increase of its share we in the world trade. According to the most recent figures, the share of our country’s exports in world trade rose to 0.89%, the highest level ever. Meanwhile, the share of exports in the EU’s imports rose to a record level, reaching to 1.28%. Despite the recession in the global economy, geopolitical developments in neighboring countries, terrorist incidents in our country, and the effects of the July 15th treacherous terrorist initiative, our exports remained close to last year. We are about to enter in 2017. Our readers will read these lines in 2017. What kind of a year will 2017 be? Does TEA offer a solution for this global economic recession?
MB : As the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TEA), we declared 2017 as a year of leap, with the reform decisions that our government made in the second half of 2016. Through these structural reforms, we aim to change these negative developments in neighboring countries and the global economies into positive in 2017. From the global point of view, we also expect that next year will be more positive than 2016. Although 3 more increases of interest rates in 2017 are expected following the increase in December, global growth will be stronger in 2017. Both growth expectations in the US economy and the recovery in oil exporter countries due to the rise in oil and commodity prices, and positive signals from the Chinese economy supports that.Of course, the unfavorable conditions in the world demand and the war in the nearby geography have negative effects. Nevertheless, we have declared the year 2017 as a year of leap in export, just like a campaign of export,
to realize the acceleration of our country in the upcoming period. Because we have to do it for Turkey in order to consolidate our macroeconomic stability and gains and to ensure sustainable economic development. There is a global perception that Turkish products are of higher quality than Chinese products and cheaper than European products.
But the export figures are well beyond these two markets. What is missing?
MB: As Turkish Exporters Assembly, we are the representatives of 65 thousand exporters providing employment for 3 million people. We are making great efforts to serve the healthy and stable growth of our economy, to raise our country’s global competitiveness, to get a bigger share in world trade. Of course, our basic priorities include more production. But there is something more important than that, which is to produce high added value. In this context, as TEA, we present four main parameters that will bring us to our objectives as R&D, innovation, design, and branding. In the process of bringing our country to the level of prosperity and development, we have been carrying out many activities in which all our people can actively take part.
Let’s talk about your activities, what are you doing?
MB: We organize Turkey Innovation Week events regularly for five years to settle innovation culture in our country and to interact with our valuable people in the process of transformation into information society. Turkey’s Innovation Week event, organized in Istanbul in December this year, attracted approximately 100,000 visitors with a record attendance. We have done important works in R&D, design and branding. We have contributed to the work carried out by our government. Because design is one of the most important building blocks of the high added value economy, we brought together all the disciplines of design in the Design Week of Turkey on 19-23 October. With the TEA Export Summit, we brought our exporters together with the current trends of exports on the way to 2023. With the Turkey’s 500 Great Service Exporters Award Ceremony, we rewarded the success of our service exporters, who have played a significant role in our development agenda. For the last two years, we have organized our events in the cities in Anatolia, where our Exporters’ Unions operate. We have organized design competitions and R&D Project Markets events in every sector with our Exporters Unions by bringing together students, industrialists, academicians and entrepreneurs in the process of transformation into the information society. We reward the works of our dynamic youth in these competitions and present successful projects at the Turkey Innovation Week events which we have organized for five years. On the other hand, as the most prominent advocate of change in production and exports, we organized Turkey Design Week activity between 19-21 October 2016 for the first time in Turkey in order to bring design and industry together. We intend to make the event traditional because of the intense interest and appreciation we have encountered. Do you have an organization or representative outside of Turkey?
MB. : Yes, we have been also taking important steps in this regard. To improve the conditions of our exporters in the existing markets and to
H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, expresses his support to Turkish Exporters Assembly. 10.08.2016/ Ankara. explore new and alternative markets, we have
been conducting market studies. In this context, we have been establishing Turkish Trade Centers (TTC) to reflect the strong image of
Turkey in the regions that are regarded as the center of trade worldwide. TTCs operate as
fairs that are open for 7/24. We have opened our first trade center in Tehran and we will open next ones in Chicago,
New York and Dubai in the coming days. We- have been continuing to make studies on alternative markets as well as existing markets. In this context, as exporters, we will access every market and sell our goods. In 2015, we organized 4210 bilateral business meetings in 23 countries with 723 businessmen accompanied by TEA trade delegations. In addition, we carried out 2,160 bilateral business meetings and brought 439 foreign businessmen from many countries of the world to Turkey as part of procurement delegations. The European Union continues to be the biggest market. But, we see that exports to African countries, which was 2.1 billion dollars in 2003, increased almost 12 times in 2015 to 12.4 billion dollars. Our investments in Africa reached 6.2 billion dollars and we employ about 100,000 people. As the Turkish Exporters Assembly, we aim to make our exporters more powerful and competitive in the world markets. For this, we will concentrate even more on the studies that will direct our exporters to new markets. In this context, we will continue to organize trade delegations with our businessmen to alternative markets as well as our traditional markets I would like to ask a final question. For years, it has been said that there has been a lack of global branding in Turkey, do you agree with
that?
MB: As TEA, we have to express that we have made important steps in the brand and imageissues. We created “Turkey Brand” in 2014 with the slogan of “Turkey-Discover the Potential” under the auspices of the Ministry of Economy and with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. With the aim of presenting the future vision and the achievements of our country, we will continue our promotional activities in more places in the world next year. Thus, we aim to further strengthen the positive
perception of our country.
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