Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Hisarcıklıoğlu, speaking at the opening of the Bolu Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s new service building, said, “As TOBB, our contributions to education, excepting universities, has reached approximately 75 million TL. This is because the best investment is the one made in education. Half of our population is under 28.5 years of age. If we can educate our population well, it will become our future, our natural resource.”

Drawing attention to the fact that half the population in Turkey is women, Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that ratio of women entrepreneurs in 1.5 million establishments is only 6% and that it needs to be 50%.

“A country will prosper as much as it increases the number of its entrepreneurs,” said Hisarcıklıoğlu and reported that Germany and Japan, which were leveled to the ground 70 years ago during WWII, have been reborn from their ashes thanks to their entrepreneurs.

Pointing out that, thanks to their entrepreneurs, Germany and Japan have become the 3rd and 4th largest economies of the world; Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that, proportionately, Japan has 4 times as many entrepreneurs as Turkey does.

Hisarcıklıoğlu went on: “Please, raise your children as entrepreneurs because entrepreneur means at least the provider of employment and sustenance to one person in the future. They save at least one more person in addition to themselves. ‘The most beneficent of men is who is beneficent to other people,’ so we say. The only profession heralded with heaven is that of merchants.

If you are a proper merchant, if your scales are precise then you are held at the level of martyrs. That is how important your job is.”

- UMEM Project

Hisarcıklıoğlu, calling to mind that they started off the “Specialized Profession Training Centers (UMEM) Ability’10” project, conducted in cooperation between the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, National Education Ministry, İş-Kur, TOBB University of Economy and Technology and Turkey Economic Policies Research Foundation (TEPAV), stated that they are working to bring unemployment to an end in Turkey.

Emphasizing that they are aiming to provide people without a profession the training they need, Hisarcıklıoğlu concluded: “As part of the project we provide 3 months of training to attendees. We provide 20 TL allowance per day and health insurance. After training is complete we encourage our businessmen to hire those who finish the training. Afterwards they receive 25 TL per day and health insurance and at the end of the 6 months we certify them on the reference of their employer.

The businessman employs the trainee. As the private sector, we had one problem which was the tax burden on employment. We are a world champion in this regard. We pay the highest taxes for employment.”
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