Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

At the TEPAV-SAP Turkey “Think Simple Make a Difference” Forum attended by Minister for Science, Industry and Technology Fikri, Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that 30 years ago, Turkey’s export volume was 3 billion USD and that almost 90% of that was comprised of agricultural goods.

Stating that Turkey has come a long way from a closed economy to one which has an export volume of 160 billion USD, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “When you look at which country is the industry giant between Italy and China, it is Turkey. This progress has brought Turkey’s per capita income to almost 10,000 USD, our goal is to reach 25,000 USD. In order to escape the medium income trap, we must skip 2.5 steps up. We can do this in the short term, but the answer is technology.”

- “SMEs are an essential of the economy”

“SMEs are the world’s shining stars,” said Hisarcıklıoğlu and reported that 90% to 99% of all companies in Turkey and the world are small and medium sized businesses. Stating that SMEs are an essential of the economy, Hisarcıklıoğlu reported that 60% of Turkey’s exports are conducted by SMEs.

Touching on women entrepreneurs, Hisarcıklıoğlu requested affirmative action to this end from Minister Işık.

Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “In public tenders, women should be given a certain quota as well being given price advantages. We want support of this nature for our women entrepreneurs.”

Pointing to the need for permanent investments from global tech firms in Turkey in order to properly actualize the potential of Turkish youth in regards to software development, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “I would like to thank SAP for opening its 14^th innovation center in the world in Turkey with an investment of 20 million Euros.”

- SAP

SAP, a multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations, aims to provide support to pioneering institutions in Turkey.

SAP Forum Ankara is hosting over a thousand leaders and administrators with its agenda on digital transformation in the private and public sectors, smart cities, energy and defense as well as sharing analytics and tech applications on big data management, analytics and organizational resource planning.