Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Halim Mete stated in his speech that Turkey has gone through a different period in recent years, “First, they’ve managed to make Turkey into a country which is remembered for terror attacks. The terrorist organizations, especially the PKK and the DAESH, are moving against us. But they did not break our unity, and solidarity. Then we experienced the coup d'etat attempt on July 15th. FETO and its collaborators tried to take Turkey back to the dark days of 30, 40 years ago. But our people prevented it. Now they are carrying an unrelenting black propaganda against Turkey with their accusations. In this process, we have successfully passed a very important test as Turkey and the Turkish private sector. If another country had experienced half of what we did, it would not recover for another decade or more.”

- TOBB always stands with the state

Mete underlined that the fact that TOBB always stands with the state and the nation, explaining that they were standing firm against terrorism. Halim Mete, who talked about keeping the business community together, said, “We are in consultation with more than 100 of our partners, especially the International Chamber of Commerce ICC, Eurochambres and the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We’ve held dozens of events domestically and internationally for Turkey's interests. The Turkey Image Campaign, which we will launch today under the coordination of Mr. Nihat Zeybekçi, is an important milestone in all of our efforts. We are very well aware of how important it is the way you are perceived as the business community. Today we are starting a global campaign despite those who are trying to wear us out with their perception games. We trust in Turkey despite those who don’t. Those who invested in Turkey have always won, and those who invest in Turkey today will be winners tomorrow. We say this as business community leaders who have invested in Turkey.”

Mete, the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of TOBB, expressed his gratitude to all international companies and managers who contributed to this project and said “We hope that our campaign will be instrumental to the benefit of all and contribute (10 million US$) to this project as TOBB and that we are proud to serve Turkey.”