Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

At the opening of the meeting, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that digitalization and e-commerce are the most prominent issues in the whole world, "They have become even more important with pandemics. Turkey's total e-commerce volume was 136 billion liras last year. In this way, e-commerce volume increased by 64% in the first 6 months of the year compared to the same period last year. 56 billion liras reached 92 billion liras. In the first half of last year, the proportion of e-commerce in general trade was 8%, and now this ratio has reached 14%."

Noting that the global trend is in this direction, the TOBB President said, "When we look at the world, we see that all companies that are growing rapidly chose the e-commerce path. That's the result of making the most of technology."

Noting that Turkey is similar to western countries in internet connection prevalence, quality and smartphone usage rates, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, "90% of the population has a mobile connection. 50 million people are regularly connected to the internet every day. At TOBB, we want to activate this potential. After the Covid-19, the orientation to this area will continue without slowing down. E-commerce will become a habit for the consumer who starts shopping online. Therefore, our businesses have to move their products and services to digital media."

As TOBB, Hisarcıklıoğlu emphasized that they aim to digitize the private sector and develop the next generation of entrepreneurship and that they are preparing, companies and entrepreneurs, for the digital world, and that they have implemented collaborations and projects in this regard together with Vodafone, one of the world's largest global technology companies.

Stating that they produce projects to improve digital literacy and digital infrastructure of SMEs, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, "We want to improve e-commerce not only from firm to consumer, but also from the company to the company. We are also guiding them with our e-commerce sector councils, which represent all sectors. In all sector-oriented works, our sector councils will continue to be active."

Stating that, as TOBB and Vodafone, they are preparing SMEs for the digital world with Turkey Technology Meetings and Digital Transformation Movement, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, "Again in this context, Vodafone is taking another step and starting to offer e-commerce service package to our members. This package includes all the services SMEs need for e-commerce, including free consultancy and training services. In addition, all our members can access this package with a 45% discount. With Vodafone Business, I believe that our SMEs will use digitalization more effectively to capture the opportunities of the next new world and grow their business."

E-commerce Center CEO Merter Özdemir said that they are organizing e-commerce and e-export trainings in cooperation with chambers/exchanges in all 81 provinces.

Vodafone Turkey Executive Director (CEO) Colman Deegan said that the whole