Turkish Business Club
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Dr. Nilgün Birgören Premium Member Group moderatorThe company name is only visible to registered members.World Economic Forum - Istanbul
Hello from Istanbul dear friends and members,
The first “World Economic Forum on Europe and Central Asia 2008” is being held today in İstanbul. Government and business leaders from various European countries, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East are participating in the forum, planned to last until Nov. 1.
The forum, also known as a “mini-Davos,” is organized by the World Economic Forum (WEF), famously known for organizing the high-profile Davos Meetings. Headquartered in Cologny, near Geneva, the forum’s mission statement says its “committed to improving the state of the World.” It claims to be impartial and not-for-profit and is not tied to any political, partisan or national interests. It has observer status on the United Nations Economic and Social Council and is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Government. Its highest governance body is the Foundation Board, comprising 22 members, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Rania of Jordan.
Heavy guns from multinational corporations as well as governmental regulatory bodies are participating in the forum’s meeting in İstanbul to shed light on what is occurring in the current financial crisis. Herman Gref, the CEO of Russian Sberbank RF; Muhtar Kent, the president and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company; Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for competition; and Jean Lemierre, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, COMMA are named as co-chairs for the forum.
“This meeting is an opportunity to discuss cross-regional challenges and opportunities and how the business environment is developing across the region at this crucial moment,” said Christophe Weber, the head of Europe and Central Asia for WEF in an interview.
Organizers say they chose Turkey because it is a place which symbolizes the merging of continents and civilizations and is the epitome of economic buoyancy. Turkey is the perfect meeting place for such a prestigious meeting, the statement posted on the WEF Web site explained.
The WEF meeting in İstanbul will gather representatives of regional and international business communities and officials, as well as cultural and religious leaders across Europe, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East to discuss common challenges faced by regions and to develop common ways to solve them.
This event strives to achieve three main goals: to examine business opportunities in the region and define strategies to compete with Asian economies in the context of the global economic crisis; to address cross-regional challenges, uncertainties, conflicting interests and regional geopolitical security; and to develop intercultural and inter-religious dialogue as a necessary condition for prosperity, stability and security across the countries.
The meeting will bring together international and regional business leaders and government representatives, as well as media, cultural and religious leaders from across Europe, western and Central Asia and the Middle East to explore the common challenges faced by the regions and to map the path towards a common collaborative future.
The program will focus on business opportunities, energy security, the role of Central Asia, and Turkey’s leadership role in the region. The three goals of the meeting, convened under an overarching theme of “Confronting Challenges in Defining a Collaborative Future” are to:
* Examine business opportunities in the region and define strategies to compete with the influence of the Asian economies and in the wake of global economic slowdown
* Address cross-regional challenges, uncertainties and conflicting interests and set a regional geopolitical and security agenda
* Advance intercultural and inter-religious dialogue as a precondition for prosperity, stability and security across the regions
Sessions will be held in English, with simultaneous interpretation in Russian, Turkish and Arabic in the plenary sessions.
The forum held its last meeting in İstanbul in 2006 when over 400 high-level participants from international business and political leadership, as well as top Turkish business figures and government officials, attended.
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Profiles of World Economic Forum co-chairs:
Herman Gref: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sberbank RF, Russian Federation; Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007)
Ph.D. in law, Omsk State University. 1992-94, Chairman, Committee on Property Management, St. Petersburg; 1997-98, Vice-Governor, St. Petersburg; 1998-2000, First Deputy, Minister of State Property, Russia; 2000-07, Minister for Economic Development and Trade; 2000, Chairman of the Board, Center for Strategic Research.
Muhtar A. Kent: President and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, USA
BSc in economics, University of Hull; MSc in managerial economics, City University, London. With Coca-Cola: 1978-79, Assistant Brand Manager, Atlanta; 1979-81, Marketing Coordinator, Balkan and South-West Europe, Rome; 1981-85, Sales Director, European Transportation Market; General Manager: Turkey and Central Asia, Istanbul; 1991-95, Senior Vice-President, International and President, East Central European Division, Vienna; 1995-97, MD, Coca-Cola Amatil Holding, Vienna; 1999-2005, President and Chief Executive Officer, Efes Beverage Group; 2005, President, Coca-Cola International; since 2006, current position; from 2008, Chief Executive Officer, Coca-Cola.
Neelie Kroes: Commissioner for Competition, European Commission, Brussels
MSc in economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. 1965-71, Assistant Professor of Economics, Erasmus University; 1969-71, Member, Rotterdam Municipal Council; Member, Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce; 1971-77, Member of Parliament; 1977-81, Secretary of State for Transport and Public Works; 1982-89, Cabinet Minister of Transport and Public Works; 1989-91, Adviser to European Transport Commissioner, Brussels; 1991-2004, President, Board of Directors: National Investment Bank, Netherlands; Intis. Member, Board of Directors: VIB; Royal Nedlloyd Group; Ballast Nedam; NCM Holding. Adviser, Coopers & Lybrand Dijker Van Dien; RAC, London; Chairman, Governing Board, De Kunsthal, Rotterdam; Member, Governing Board, Delta-TBS; Member, Competitiveness Advisory Group to Chairman, European Commission. 1989, honorary doctorate, University of Hull, UK. Recipient of awards including: Grand Officer, Order of the Légion d’Honneur, France; Grand Cross, Order of Germany; Grand Officer, Order of Orange Nassau, Netherlands; Bintang Mahaputra Adiprana Order, Indonesia (1993); Woman of the Year in Infrastructure (1993); International Road Federation.
Jean Lemierre: Senior Adviser to the Chairman, BNP Paribas Group, France
1972, degree in law; 1976, graduate, École Nationale d’Administration. 1989-95, Director-General, French Taxation Office; 1995, Director of the Cabinet, Ministry of Economy and Finance; 1995-2000, Head, Treasury. 1995-98, Member, European Monetary Committee. 1999-2000, Chairman: Ecofin; Paris Club; 2000-08, President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Kind regards,
Nilgun Birgoren
- 31 Oct 2008, 4:53 pm
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Dr. Nilgün Birgören Premium Member Group moderatorThe company name is only visible to registered members.
Re: World Economic Forum - Istanbul / The Global Crisis issue
The World Economic Forum (WEF) opened a regional meeting in Turkey on Thursday, which organizers hope will shape solutions to the global economic crisis.
The three-day meeting, which ends on Saturday, will also focus on business opportunities that might arise from the crisis, energy and resources security, Central Asia's role in the world and Turkey's position as a bridge among Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Speaking on the opening day of the WEF meeting on Europe and Central Asia 2008, Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF, articulated that the regional meeting's main task as to try to comprehend what caused the crisis and then work towards a collective solution. Responding to a question posed by Today's Zaman about the diverse panels discussing a wide range of topics and concrete solutions that could be drawn from these sessions, Schwab said: "We are still in the area of understanding [what the crisis is and what caused it].
We are living in a very interdependent and complex world where everything is connected. When you split [the connections], you will see many facets of the problem. We have to look into each facet in each session. How can we integrate at the end? I think it will be left to each participant to draw their own conclusion.”
The WEF brings together political and business leaders as well as academics, nongovernmental organizations and media to work towards collective solutions as “all are stakeholders in a global society,” Schwab noted.
Jean Lemierre, senior advisor to the chairman of the BNP Paribas Group, praised regional political and business leaders for their rapid response to the crisis and believed that the WEF would assist them in developing further rapid responses.
One point of consensus amongst participants at the conference seems to be that the post-crisis world will be quite different from what it is now and that there may well be new relationships emerging between government and business in that world. Schwab underlined this fact, stating that there would likely be a need to “redefine the relationship between the real economy and the financial economy,” taking into account the social implications of these relationships.
“We are really looking at options of how to get the global economy’s engine started once the crisis eases,” said Borge Brende, managing director of the WEF and the former Norwegian minister of trade and industry.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani are among leaders expected to attend the İstanbul meeting of the WEF, which is based in Geneva. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was scheduled to give a keynote address late on Thursday.
Thomas Mirow, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), was also at the meeting. He told Associated Press Television News in London earlier this week that the bank could not provide major funding to countries on the same scale as loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“What we can and will do is sustain our engagement in these countries, meaning supporting banks running into trouble, helping our corporate clients who may be in need of a credit line, for instance for foreign trade,” Mirow said. “So we will stick to our engagement; we will improve our engagement and by this contribute to stabilization.” The first session of the day, titled “EBRD Investment Priorities in Turkey,” featured both Mirow and Mehmet Şimşek, the Turkish economy minister.
Addressing questions as to whether or not Turkey would be looking at additional IMF stand-by agreements, Minister Şimşek replied, “As the public sector, we are at a point where we don’t need the sources of the IMF, but we have a constructive attitude towards a precautionary stand-by agreement, which will be like a peg.”
“The quality and the scope of the insurance that we will get is very important in terms of turning this constructive attitude into a program. In such an environment, Turkey will of course need some flexibility. If we can overcome the differences, a precautionary stand-by agreement can be on the agenda, but to this end, there are only talks on the technical level. In this context, a constructive dialogue is still going on, but I don’t have so much to state right now,” said Şimşek. “Apart from it the dialog which existed on the technical level about the stand-by agreement, we cannot talk about an actual declaration right now. But discussions on the technical level will continue in the future as well.”
The EBRD has recently announced that it will provide $600 million in EBRD investments in Turkey, the second largest economy in the EBRD’s area of concern, by 2010. They will focus on five key areas of growth; micro and small medium-sized enterprises, agribusiness, municipal environmental services, energy and energy efficiency, and privatization. The announcement also noted that the bank would be focusing on areas “outside main metropolitan centers, in areas where economic reforms are less advanced.” Owned by 61 countries and two intergovernmental organizations, the EBRD is presently the single largest lender in the area it serves, and developing the Turkish economy forms part of its mandate to strengthen private sectors in emerging markets. Turkey applied to be a recipient of EBRD funds in April 2008.
Unlike IMF loans, the majority of EBRD funds are much smaller in scale and directed towards the private sector, and loans come with few general country requirements other than those associated with its charter mandate of fostering the “transition towards open market-oriented economies and to promote private and entrepreneurial initiative in the Central and Eastern European countries that are committed to and applying the principles of multiparty democracy, pluralism and market economics.”
Kind regards,
Nilgun Birgoren
- 31 Oct 2008, 10:56 pm
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Dr. Nilgün Birgören Premium Member Group moderatorThe company name is only visible to registered members.
Verheugen on Turkiye
Dear members,
European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Günter Verheugen has said the growth rate of the Turkish economy is well above average despite the global crisis, predicting that Turkey's high growth rates will continue in 2009 as well.
Speaking yesterday at the opening ceremony of a project to spread the network of EU-Turkey Business Development Centers (ABİGEM), which was organized by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges Economics and Technology University (TOBB-ETÜ) in Ankara, Verheugen shared his remarks on the strength of the Turkish economy amid global fluctuations. He pointed out that the Turkish economy has the potential to keep growing, especially with its dynamism and strong infrastructure. "Turkey is an integral part of the globalized economy," he emphasized. In spite of this, European countries have to be modest in setting their growth rate targets for the period ahead, he added.
He also highlighted the role of ABİGEMs in boosting the entrepreneurial spirit among especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He further underlined that the entire world is now passing through a period of radical structural changes, the results of which will begin to emerge during the next decade. Decision makers all across the world will have to make great efforts to explain to society the rationale behind these changes, he said. For Verheugen, the importance of small companies has increased in the globalized economy as a stabilizing factor.
Small companies may still face problems in accessing to funds, adopting modern technologies and doing business overseas, he noted, adding that the spread of the ABİGEM network will help companies overcome these hurdles.
Verheugen mentioned an EU study which aims to find a way to cut administrative burdens on small companies in Europe by 25 percent by 2012. "If we can succeed in this, we will then be able to achieve a significant increase in productivity. We will achieve an increase of over 1 to 1.5 percent in the growth rate. I invite you take a part in this project, too. I believe this is very important and necessary. We need individuals who will accept the responsibility of being an entrepreneur in a modern society and in a market economy," he said.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan also delivered a speech at the ceremony. He said more ABİGEMs are being opened across Turkey to help small companies enjoy more competitiveness and boost their activities abroad. These centers will gradually become more and more important, he said. SMEs are the backbone of Turkey's production and industry, he said and noted that the Turkish economy is largely dependent on them. He also asserted that Turkey has been making efforts to take part in EU programs that will encourage competitiveness and innovation in small companies. A memorandum of understanding for admission into such a program was recently signed between Turkey and the EU and is awaiting approval of the EU and the Turkish parliament, he added.
Kind regards,
Nilgun Birgoren
- 01 Nov 2008, 3:37 pm
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Dr. Nilgün Birgören Premium Member Group moderatorThe company name is only visible to registered members.
US and Turkiye's 'energy'
US President George W. Bush has sent a high-profile team to Turkiye to help "diversify Turkiye's energy mix and to promote Turkiye's role as a strategic energy corridor".
US Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffrey Kupfer arrived in Turkiye on Thursday with a delegation of senior US officials to attend the World Economic Forum and hold high-level talks with Turkish politicians and members of the business community. The stated purpose of the visit was to reaffirm the "US commitment to help Turkiye strengthen its energy security" and find ways in which the US could assist Turkiye, such as financing projects during this time of crisis when commercial banks are much less willing to lend.
The private meeting of the delegation consisted of US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) President Robert Mosbacher, US Export-Import Bank Chief Operating Officer John McAdams and US Trade and Development Agency Director Larry Walther, and discuss the US administration's plans. Speaking at the small roundtable event, Kupfer stated that the delegation had been sent by Bush to help "diversify Turkiye's energy mix and to promote Turkiye's role as a strategic energy corridor." Noting that several members of the delegation had worked with Turkish companies for a significant number of years, Kupfer emphasized that the trip would also give US agencies a feel for what individual companies were looking for in order to facilitate investment and reaffirmed the US government's commitment to the "westward flow of Caspian resources." The administration's position, he clarified, was that "Turkiye is in a position to enhance its energy security and provide solutions to its upstream and downstream partners".
In an interview with journalists after the meeting, Kupfer reiterated the good strategic relations that Washington enjoys with Ankara on a number of fronts. "We are here with this particular delegation because we are looking for a continued push for energy diversity around the world, especially in the Caspian region and in Europe," he said. "Turkiye plays a vital role in that overall policy."
The delegation, he said, would specifically talk with the government and the private sector about their financing requirements. When asked if there were any specific companies that the delegation was working with or if there were any concerns on the part of the delegation regarding the tender process, Kupfer did not want to comment on any particular deals, but stated: "Our role is to make sure that the tenders and the rest of the business climate are conducive to US companies having the ability to compete. It's in everyone's interest that the investment climate is supportive of multiple companies being able to compete in the tenders and being able to get the best prices and the best technology."
The US has long been active in promoting energy diversification in Turkiye and elsewhere and promotes not only alternative pipeline routes, but also alternative energy sources. "These are not just our goals -- they are Turkiye's goals. We all share the same goals. There is energy security, and we are looking to diminish dependence on natural gas by making efficiency improvements," he said. Nuclear energy factors heavily in this plan. Mosbacher noted during the meeting that in addition to supporting oil and gas pipelines, the administration places importance on diversifying energy sources, with a particular emphasis on renewable energy, and is especially interested in investing in these projects when there is partial American ownership.
Responding to questions concerning helping Turkiye and Europe reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas, Kupfer said this has long been a priority of the US government and that now -- in the aftermath of the Georgian crisis -- its importance has been underlined. The Southern Corridor, a supply route which would carry Caspian gas to Europe, he said, is an essential part of this strategy.
Regarding the global economic crisis, Kupfer highlighted the fact that it would likely be increasingly difficult for governments and companies to borrow from commercial banks in order to secure needed funding, especially for long-term infrastructure projects. Through such actors as the US government, OPIC and the Export-Import Bank, Kupfer said, "we would all agree to share the risk of making loans and stepping into the void left by commercial banks' retreat." He added that his intention was not to crowd out private sector banks and that he'd rather they be the principal financers.
One obvious way to diversify routes would be relying on Iranian pipelines. Kupfer, nonetheless, reaffirmed America's negative stance on this issue and deflected comments that Armenia could be a reasonable transit route given the threats posed to pipelines running through Georgia that were exposed during the recent Russian invasion.
It was reported that the delegation had already had meetings with the Turkish prime minister and energy minister and has planned meetings with the foreign minister and the treasury minister. The Turkish government, Kupfer noted, is very supportive of the initiative.
Kind regards,
Nilgun Birgoren
- 02 Nov 2008, 6:38 pm
