Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

In his speech at the General Assembly, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu thanked everyone who contributed to the successful endeavors of GTI.

“If the intent is beneficent, the outcome will be beneficent,” said Hisarcıklıoğlu. Stating that they began this endeavor in 2005 with beneficent intentions, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that because of a lack of investment in Turkey's land customs gates despite half of Turkey’s foreign trade being conducted over land routes, sub-optimal conditions would result in added costs and problems.

Stating that this negatively impacted their members, and by extension all of Turkey, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “Because of the security problems in the border crossings, all of Turkey suffered. We asked the government to let us do it. They put their trust in this community. When we dreamed about this and started our journey, our 137 Chambers and Commodity Exchanges understood us and gave of their labor and heart to this endeavor. There is a saying in our culture, 'Grace and prosperity in unity; anguish in dissent.’ With our unity and solidarity, success prosperity came.”

Noting that no such project exists anywhere else in the world, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “I’ll say it very clearly: GTI Co. Inc. is today one of Turkey's most important values ​​as well as one of its most remarkable success stories. This success, is the result of the vision of the community and the nature of our strength together as the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey. This is your work. It is the most concrete indication of what we can win, what we can achieve for our country when we come together.”

Stating that GTI Co. Inc. is today's most successful example of public-private sector cooperation, the TOBB President stated that it is and exemplary project not only in Turkey but the world.

Hisarcıklıoğlu reported that the United Nations points to this project for the whole world, that they should 'do as TOBB does if they want to make their customs safe and fast like Turkey.

Hisarcıklıoğlu explained that they started to work with countries in the region in this regard, “If we can transfer the experience we’ve acquired and the exemplary model created in Turkey to countries on the Silk Route, then we would benefit as well as our whole region. To this end, we have come to the point of modernizing the customs gates of various countries of the region. We started to work in Iran and Central Asian countries. I hope we will all do it together.”