Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği

Stressing that the most beneficent of men is he who is beneficent unto others, TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Today we came together with the same understanding. This work is a matter of vision. It is our understanding that consultation is Sunnah. Today we are all in consultation. I would like to congratulate President  Gürsel Baran, the Board of Directors and the Assembly Chairman Mustafa Deryal, who brought us together with this vision.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu said that Ankara Chamber of Commerce is an institution of learning and that he has learned the importance of the unity here.

Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out that the number of cities with a population of over 1 million in the world was 77 in 1950. “There were only 2 cities with over 10 million people. Today, the number of metropolitan cities reached 436, and the number of mega cities reached 23. In 1950, 740 million people lived in cities. Today, 4 billion people do. Cities will compete instead of countries in the future. Brand cities are in competition.”

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu stressed that Turkey stands no chance at prosperity without investors.

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that ATO has done very important works to increase both the attractiveness and the brand value of Ankara, one of which is increasing the international direct flights and the other is the construction of the fairground.

Stating that entrepreneurship is prosperity, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We were a self-contained country until the late Özal arrived. He expanded our horizons. Our exports in the 80s were 3 billion USD. Today we are exporting 170 billion USD. How far we’ve come. TOBB brought entrepreneurship to the top of Turkey's agenda. That's why we established our women and young entrepreneur boards. There isn’t a university I haven’t visited. I explained entrepreneurship everywhere. I want young people to understand entrepreneurship.”

Pointing out that success will not come without dreaming, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “You’re freest in your dreams. Keep your dream wide. Muhammad Ali said a man without imagination has no wings. Without imagination, Christopher Columbus would not discover America. It's the only place where you don't have limits. Imagine your goal. But it's important to work for the goal. We need to work systematically.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that he always cared a lot about the teamwork and said: “In my youth I read that a great businessman named Andrew Carnegie wrote on his grave: ‘There is someone here who employs smarter people than himself. Those who employ smart people win. I've always called myself a smart man. In my business life, I have always employed smart people. The greatest capital is mind. I'm from Kayseri but I'm not sorry for the money I've given to smart people.”

Pointing out that there are problems in the economy, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We experienced something like this in 2001. I was newly elected as TOBB President. In our lap, we have found the biggest crisis of our history. So what did we do? First, we read the crisis right. This is similar to this; If the first button of the shirt is wrongly buttoned, the rest will be wrong. The 2001 crisis was the crisis of our faulty lifestyle. Both the public and the private sector had to change. And we began to change ourselves. We have a disease. We look like a Teflon pan. We do not accept anything; we do not accept our faults. We all say change, but nobody starts the change with themselves. So we said, let us start with ourselves first, to correct ourselves. First we created a common cause. I visited all the chambers-exchanges. Then we came together with people from many different environments. We made a call conference. Many projects that have taken place today have come out of there.”

Reminding that they started SME Support Loan, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Our banks and our chambers provide resources with rates of 1.85% monthly and 22% annually. 25% of the resources of the chambers / commodity exchanges were transferred here.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that without unity and solidarity, there will be no success and that they should not marginalize anyone.