Economy Management at ICI...

Until recently, the serious problems and damages caused by the moving away from rational economic policies in our country have unfortunately affected our production life and industrialists very negatively. Today, while we are going through a very serious and valuable process to overcome the problems we are experiencing in the economy with a rational road map, we have been struggling to normalize our economy for about a year and a half.

It was very valuable that our Vice President Mr. Cevdet Yılmaz and our Minister of Treasury and Finance Mr. Mehmet Şimşek, who always consulted with the real sector in this struggle, visited our Chamber last month and listened to us about the solutions to the current problems experienced by our production life and industrialists.

The most important aspect of the struggle I mentioned above is undoubtedly the restoration of financial stability. It is because when the control of financial stability is lost or loosened even a little bit, we are all experiencing the cost together. Today, these costs include deterioration of projection and investment climate, loss of credibility, moral decline and high inflation affecting all segments of society...

The Central Bank's decisions are very important in the restoration of financial stability, which is the most critical milestone in the fights against inflation, which we, as all segments of the society, are determined to achieve. Last month, we hosted Mr. Fatih Karahan, the Governor of the Turkish Central Bank, the apple of our eyes in this vital struggle, at the ICI Assembly. Mr. Karahan and his valuable colleagues attended the meeting with the agenda of “The Importance of Central Bank Policies for Our Industry, Production Life and Financial Stability”, gave very important messages about this struggle process and the future, which you can read in the following pages.

Apart from these, last month we carried out very intense and valuable activities on behalf of our Chamber. First of all, I would like to mention our visit to the ICI Life City with our Assembly Members, which is one of the most concrete steps of our feelings of “solidarity and solidarity”, our strongest side as a nation in difficult times. On February 6, when the earthquakes caused the greatest destruction and devastation, we went to the ICI Life City, which we built in Hatay's Antakya district with 1000 containers, together with our benevolent Assembly Members and donors. We came together again with our citizens living there. It was a meeting full of emotion. As you can read in the following pages, we also met with our industrialists from Hatay and Iskenderun, then Adana and Tarsus. I would like to thank once again our industrialists from Adana, Hatay, Iskenderun and Tarsus who welcomed us with warmth and friendship.

On behalf of our chamber, we took a historic step last month. Since 2019, we launched the new identity of the ICI Academy, which has been providing very useful trainings to our business world, especially our industry. I believe ICI Academy will become a highly functional and valuable institution in the field of education in the future, and hope that it will be beneficial to our industry. I wish you to complete this last month of the year in health and peace.

Istanbul Chamber of Industry 
Chairman of the Board of Directors