Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD attended the General Assembly of TÜRKONFED

Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD attended the General Assembly of Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TÜRKONFED) on March 30th, 2013, in Istanbul and delivered an address.

The opening addresses of the meeting were delivered by Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD and Mr. Süleyman Onatça, President of the Board of Directors of TÜRKONFED. Mr. Egemen Bağış, Minister of EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator with the EU and Mr. Zafer Çağlayan, Minister of Economy delivered a speech as well.

The speech of Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD focused on the financial crisis in Europe. Mr. Yılmaz remarked that in the Western World is in search of not only financial measures, but also a new framework for restructuring the economy, and indeed a new outlook and a new model of global governance is what is needed. Mr. Yılmaz reminded that the European Union had put off the reforms required by the globalization process, and this is why it is now in search of an economic restructuring and he continued as follows: “They are working primarily with financial reforms such as banking union, common financial rule. However we know that there are other important structural reforms to be considered besides these financial and banking reforms. There is also the need to decide on the future of the relations with Turkey.” Mr. Yılmaz stressed that they have to hope for and support a successful EU as the most significant global attempt for a successful globalization and sustainable welfare and he said: “We believe that a restructuring without Turkey is not realistic.” Mr. Yılmaz discussed also the Turkish economy with its 10 years of significant stability. He reminded the new set of stability measures introduced in 2011 and their successful implementation, and continued as follows: “The soft landing of the economy has been achieved. We observed that we learned how to drive, we could put n the brakes and we can decelerate when we would like to. This self confidence is a major gain for the Turkish economy.” Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz remarked that there are only 14 cities where there is no risk of “middle income trap” and said, “however there are 40 cities squeezed at a certain level of income, the so called ‘middle income trap’, and unfortunately 27 more low income cities, not even at the level of ‘middle income trap’”.

During the 2013 General Assembly of TÜRKONFED, the current president Mr. Süleyman Onatça was reelected as the president of TÜRKONFED.