30.01.2014 Italy
TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu met with Turkish and Italian businessmen for a business breakfast as a part of President Abdullah Gül’s state visit to Italy.
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.”