23.05.2019 Washington / USA
The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu attended the Trans-Caspian Forum 2019 conference organized by the US Chamber of Commerce and the Caspian Policy Center. Hisarcıklıoğlu was the keynote speaker at the conference on infrastructure investments in the region. Hisarcıklıoğlu shared the views of the Turkish business community at the conference.
Hisarcıklıoğlu,
as a part of his visit to USA, visited Turkey's Ambassador to Washington Serdar
Kılıç, engaging in an exchange of views. Afterwards, he met with the Vice
President of the US Chamber of Commerce for Turkey Khush Choksy and Vice
President of Global Initiative Gary Litman.
The
TOBB President and his retinue then met with Sarah E. Kemp, Vice President of
International Trade at the US Department of Commerce. Hisarcıklıoğlu expressed their
pleasure with the fact that the iron and steel tax rate was brought back to previous
levels, but voiced displeasure in having been removed from the Generalized
System of Preferences (GSP), which equals approximately 2 billion USD.
Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that the way to achieve the 75 billion USD trade volume
target set by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump is
through a Free Trade Agreement. TOBB Women Entrepreneurs Council activities
within TOBB were also discussed during the meeting.
Second,
Hisarcıklıoğlu met with the US Treasury Department Deputy Secretary for Middle
East and Africa Eric Meyer. During the meeting, Turkey and the world economic
and financial situation was assessed.
Finally,
during the meetings with US Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs Matthew Palmer and Deputy Minister of Trade Policy David
Meale, various issues such as bilateral trade relations, the situation in Syria
and the issue of S-400s came up.
TOBB
President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu was accompanied by a TOBB delegation
comprised of TOBB Vice President Tamer Kıran, TOBB Board Member Cengiz Günay,
TOBB Chief Presidential Advisor Çağrı Gürgür, TOBB Deputy Secretary General Sarp
Kalkan, Department Chief Mustafa Bayburtlu, TOBB Washington Representative
Neslihan Kaptanoğlu and Expert Senem Yavaş and Assistant Expert Mehmet Cumaoğlu.