Turkey, Aspac countries from trade bridges
ISTANBUL—Turkey is the only country “where East meets West” because Istanbul, one of its fastest-growing metropolis, is geographically located in two continents—Asia and Europe.
This geographical location makes Istanbul an ideal venue for a gathering of trade ministers and businessmen in the Asia-Pacific region in effectively bridging the trade gaps between Turkey and the countries in the region.
More important, Istanbul is probably the only place where business deals are finalized in less than 24 hours.
The proof: Three trade agreements were signed only a few hours after the speaker for each of the 20 countries presented what they could offer foreign investors before an audience of 465 businessmen and trade ministers from Asia-Pacific.
As they did last year, the participating countries made their five-minute presentation at the second annual Turkey-Asia Pacific Foreign Bridge, which was how the organizer, the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey, called the event, which began Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) at the Istanbul Show Center.
It was a five-minute talk that produced immediate results on the first day of the three-day conference that will end on Thursday (Friday in Manila).
Lucky winners
Just across the venue was the Wow International Convention Center, where deals were also closed in less than a day.
“Thousands of agreements are signed here,” Turkey’s State Minister Kursad Tuzmen told local and foreign newsmen in a press briefing. He was referring to negotiations among Asia-Pacific businessmen happening inside an exhibit hall where Turkey-made products were also on display.
While private business deals were being finalized among traders from Asia-Pacific and Turkey at the Wow Convention Center, bilateral trade agreements were being signed in a separate venue adjacent to the exhibit hall.
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal proved to be the lucky winners of the day when their representatives signed with Turkey officials, led by Tuzmen, the two-way trade agreements.
Those were the covenants between the big—which is Turkey—and the small nations.
Syed Anicul Haque, president of Bangladesh Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industries, and other Asia-Pacific delegates described their countries as small.
“We are only a small nation,” Haque said. But the size does not matter, he added, assuring businessmen here that his country is offering them the best site for their operations—six export processing zones—and the best incentives—tax-free operations for 10 years.
Apparently, the Philippines failed to tap Turkey’s potentials as trade partners by not sending trade officials last year and this year. Turkey, according to Tuzmen, generates yearly trades worth $325 billion.
“We missed that,” Philippine Ambassador to Turkey Bahnarim Guinomla told the BusinessMirror.
Guinomla is now in his second year in Turkey, where he is busy selling the Philippines as foreign investors’ destination, a task which he could handle efficiently, what with less worries about the problems usually encountered by overseas Filipino workers. Prior to his Turkey assignment, he was the Philippines’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia for 10 years.
Samie Lim, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and 20 other businessmen from Mindanao saved the day for the Philippines.
Lim told businessmen here the three the factors that spell success. “The first,” he said, “is location. The second is location and the third is location.”
Turkey’s pride
Turkey boasts of a fast-growing stock market that is young. Not even 30 years old, the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), which was put up on December 26, 1985, trades shares in 316 listed companies.
In addition, six stock-investment funds are traded daily on ISE. As of end-2006, combined daily transactions on the bourse averaged $919 million in 2006.
Turkey has the capital to offer to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Tourism is one of its biggest foreign-exchange earners. In 2007 alone, it generated $25 billion from an estimated 25 million tourists.
The government said tourism in Turkey—a “tourist paradise”—has posted significant growth from 1980 to 2005, increasing the number of foreign visitors to “17.5 times while foreign exchange earnings grew 5.5 times.”
Last year, both government and businessmen estimated the number of arrivals to have topped 20 million and contributed $25 billion to Turkey’s foreign exchange.
Turkey, with the cooperation of the private sector, has drawn up an ambitious tourism program that it started in 2004 and expects to finish in 2010. “The target is 30 million tourists in 2010 and $30 billion in tourism revenues in 2010,” the report said.
The figures were no exaggeration because, as Tuzmen told Asia-Pacific governments here, Turkey draws its tourism wealth from its 600-year-old culture and relics of history. |
