International Investors Association -YASED discussed “Turkey's Industrial Strategy and the New Term Industrial Policy”
with the participation of Minister of Industry and Trade Zafer Çağlayan
“Turkey should further increase its inward FDI flows”
Besides the Minister of Industry and Trade Zafer Çağlayan and YASED Chairman Tahir Uysal, nearly 200 attendants, including the Board Members of YASED, businessmen representing international investments in Turkey, foreign mission representatives, the executives of various NGOs, and bureaucrats participated in the luncheon organized by International Investors Association on 13 February 2008 in Istanbul.
In his opening speech, Tahir Uysal expressed their satisfaction due to the developments Turkey has been experiencing and the increase in FDI inflows from USD 1 billion to USD 20 billion. Uysal said; “We are aware of, and support the measures taken by the Government against unregistered economy. Yet we still have expectations in connection with the implementations that will follow these constructive steps. We will give unlimited support to these efforts.”
Following the address made by Tahir Uysal, the Minister of Industry and Trade Zafer Çağlayan, who participated in the luncheon as the special guest, made a comprehensive speech on “Turkey's Industrial Strategy and the New Term Industrial Policy”. Çağlayan started his speech by mentioning, “Turkey has set its path. It has become the 17th largest economy on the world and the 6th largest economy in Europe. We rank 16th on the world in inward FDI flows. Turkey should further increase its inward FDI flows. Our goal is to be among the world's top 10 countries in year 2023”.
Industrial inventory is being prepared; the goal is 270,000 industrial enterprises
Zafer Çağlayan also summarized the economic goals of the Government for 2013 and stated a GNP of USD 800 billion, an export volume of USD 225 billion, and an R&D investment of USD 16 billion, which amounts to 2% of GNP. Çağlayan continued his speech by conveying the works to be carried out by the Government in order to reach these goals. Çağlayan in this connection said;
“An industrial inventory will be prepared. We have initiated the works necessary to learn; how much and where industrial investments in Turkey are; what is the existing production volume; how is employment going on; how much energy is consumed. We have set out to learn all these. We, at the moment possess information about 60,000 industrial enterprises - out of 270,000 in total. Our goal is to collect all the information about these 270,000 industrial enterprises, and to draw out our plans accordingly. We will designate our incentive system and policy once this work is over. We have significant works on tax and social security issues as well. Turkey had remained far behind regarding the social security reform. We will secure Turkey's future with this reform.”
Zafer Çağlayan added; “One key issue is skilled labor”, and summarized his views as follows: “We highly emphasize vocational training. We are preparing an inventory study that will indicate which sectors require, what sort of skilled personnel and where. The key problem SMEs are faced with, is finding skilled personnel. One of our essential works would be to organize the faculties and departments of universities in cooperation with the Higher Education Board, according to the requests coming in from industrial and commercial enterprises”.
Çağlayan also pointed out to the significance of the New Commercial Code Draft and the Draft Bill on R&D, which are both expected to be legislated within the first half of 2008. In the last part of his speech Çağlayan briefed the works carried out on the energy and energy security issues and mentioned that they would introduce diversity with renewable energy sources. As regards the global liquidity crisis, Çağlayan said; “This crisis will not affect Turkey adversely, as it would previously. Turkey has disposed of the word 'crisis' for all, since Turkey has restructured. Our agenda is to attract FDI by developing production and employment, and step among top 10 countries in year 2023.”
Zafer Çağlayan finally mentioned about the European Union issue, and concluded his words by expressing that the Government is upset by the unconstructive criticisms on the EU issue and that their goal is full membership to the Union. “However” he said, “the reforms are being made for no one but Turkey”.