Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Hisarcıklıoğlu in his speech at the opening of OSBÜK General Assembly stated that one of the major success stories in Turkey are OIZs. Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out that OIZs have enabled Turkey's industrialization and ensure that industry spreads to Anatolia, “OIZs are among the instances wherein Turkey is a role model to the world. Our half-century OIZ experience has become a role model in our surrounding region. Today, if we have the biggest industry, production and exports between China and Italy, OIZs have a big share in this. Of course, we have more work to do in this area. We must continue to develop Turkey's OIZ model.”

Stating that OIZs in East Asia were established in larger areas and even became separate cities, TOBB President said, “They reach almost 10 times the size of our OIZs. They are not limited to industry and production. It is designed and function as a center of life, education, technology and logistics. Technoparks and technology centers are established. It includes vocational schools and university departments. In order to keep our industry alive in the global competitive environment, we need to develop our OIZs more. Here, OSBÜK, the parent organization of all OIZs, comes into play. OSBÜK has gained an institutional structure. Thus, together we continue on our way more powerfully. Together with our government, we solve our problems.”

- Thanks to Memiş Kütükçü and Minister Varank

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they work together with Memiş Kütükçü last year in TOBB’s management, “We have benefited immensely from experiences in production and industry matters. He is already an industrialist. He is also the President of Konya Chamber of Industry, one of our biggest chambers. They recently completed another work which made our country proud. The chamber’s Innopark Konya Project was able to reach the finals in the World Chambers Competition among the most unusual projects. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our Chamber and the whole team once again. President Memiş is also a great chance for our industry and OIZs. Together with him, we brought together many regulations that paved the way for our industry. Remember, in 2017, we worked with our government as part of the production reform package. In this way, many burdens on our industry - such as real estate taxes, TRT tax on electricity - have been removed. I would like to thank the Minister and the bureaucrats of the Ministry for the removal of the burdens on the industrialists.

- A burden of 1 billion TRY removed

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that at last year's prices, industrialists have recovered from a material burden of close to 1 billion TRY a year, “But of course we have other problems. Like the rapidly increasing energy prices in the last year, credit interest, letter of guarantee commissions, shrinking domestic market, collection and payment problems. Together with OSBÜK, we relayed all these to our government and work together to find a solution. Some of our work has yielded results. Credit support packages, additional incentives for new employment, state-funded trade credit insurance, tax reductions in various sectors are some of them. Our Minister of Industry and Technology, Mustafa Varank, was our voice in the government. He expressed our troubles and supported our demands. Again in this last period, public subsidies for industry and technology have accelerated significantly. The number of Technoparks and R&D Centers has increased. KOSGEB, TUBITAK, have become much more effective works. The architect of all these is Mustafa Varank, Minister of Industry and Technology. I would like to express my gratitude to the Minister, who has always been with our industrialists, on behalf of all of us, and may Allah be pleased with their efforts.”

Referring to the results of the studies, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “57% percent of our members benefited from the credit support packages announced one after the other. Support packages, additional incentives for new employment and state-funded commercial credit insurance came into play.”

After that, TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they will continue to work together and effectively in the cooperation of TOBB-OSBÜK and said that they will fight together so that industrialists can produce more and win more.

- Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank

In his speech, Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank said, “Although a very small amount, there are complaints about the renting process of some organized industrial zones. OIZs in the service of our industrialists certainly need to be seen as public spaces. I will never allow rent-seeking.”

Varank, stated that great tasks fall to entrepreneurs and industrialists in Turkey’s goal to become one of the world's largest 10 economies.

Varank, stating that with Turkey's immense and sophisticated OIZ experience, “During this process, our OIZs have attained a vision that will help to integrate our industry with the world and increase our competitiveness. They not only enlarged themselves, but served as the engine of growth for our industry.”

- 7 billion TL loan for OIZ projects

Varank stated that with the appropriate investment areas allocated as the Ministry and the support and facilities provided, they created a unique investment environment for industrialists and went on:

“During the 40-year period between 1962 and 2002, only 80 OIZ projects were completed, the number of OIZs we implemented in the last 15 years was 120. We need to strive for this, we need vision, determination and diligence, and most importantly we have to support our industrialists and entrepreneurs, and I want to express proudly that we have never left you alone in this regard. We have enabled the use of loans to the amount of 7 billion TRY. Again by registering 314 OIZs so far, we have ensured legal standing for them.”

Varank pointed out that there are 92 OIZ projects in the Investment Program of 2019, and said, “We will allow over 1.5 billion TRY to be spent for these projects. More than 3,000 parcels have been started to be built in these areas. “Allocations are in progress.”

Varank reported that 1,900,000 people were employed in the 53,177 parcels that went into production and said that they managed to increase the number of employees in OIZs by 100,000 in just the last year and that they aim to reach 2.5 million employees in OIZs by 2023.

- OSBÜK President Memiş Kütükcü

OSBÜK President Memiş Kütükcü said that they are pursuing a new and higher value added industrialization model with the Ministry of Industry and Technology.

Kütükçü said, “We need this for a more sustainable growth model which produces more wealth. We need new models, new beginnings for our industrial zones, which have been serving the planned industrialization of the country for more than Half a century, becoming the most successful production regime of Turkey.”

Emphasizing that the new generation OIZs will not just be structures that provide infrastructure and land services to the industrialists, Kütükcü said that they will make these centers producing services to the common problems of the industrialists.

Kütükcü stated that as OSBÜK, they will provide technical support to OIZs which have not completed their institutional capacity in fields such as project management and financial planning, especially in the fields of law and legislation.

Kütükcü said that there are 13 technical commissions in OSBÜK such as legislation, electricity, natural gas, zoning, vocational training and environment.

“We are working on a new dues calculation that will ease our inactive OIZs where the dues of OIZs are evaluated with 3-4 different parameters such as occupancy rates and square meter sizes. We plan to complete this study before the end of 2019. Thus, we will be able to produce a permanent, fair and effective service for our community. We will have a structure which can better serve our community.”

- Memiş Kütükçü re-elected president

As per the election held at the General Assembly of OSBÜK, Memiş Kütükcü was re-elected as president.