New Year Means New Hopes…
- 01.01.2024
- Archive
We have left behind another year. In the future, one of the things in our memories about the year 2023 will undoubtedly be earthquakes. As a nation, we experienced an unforgettable pain last year. On February 6, 11 of our cities suffered two consecutive destructive earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş. We lost tens of thousands of lives. Millions of our people lost their homes. There were people who had to emigrate from their hometown. However, thanks to the great solidarity of our state and nation, these pains have been embraced and continue to be embraced. As the Istanbul Chamber of Industry and the Istanbul Chamber of Industry Foundation, we reached out to our citizens in the region for their first urgent needs from the first days of the earthquake. We delivered many products, from generators to food, heating and hygiene items, to the region as soon as possible. Afterwards, we focused on the main issue, the housing problem of our earthquake-affected citizens. In a very short period of two months, we completed the "ICI Life City" of 1,000 containers in Antakya district of Hatay, together with our ICI Assembly and Professional Committee Members, ICI Foundation Board of Trustees members and donors, including the furnishing of the containers. We delivered it to our Hatay governorship to accommodate 5 thousands of our citizens.
Let's pray that these great sufferings will never happen again, but let's never forget the fact that almost every inch of our country is full of large and small fault lines and that we are faced with a very serious seismic effect. From now on, let's create our living and ecosystem spaces, from residences to industrial facilities, in the light of this fact. While we continue to maintain our responsibility regarding the Kahramanmaraş earthquake together with ICI and our member industrialists, we also had various events in 2023 that brought the problems of our industry to the agenda and put forward our solution-oriented approaches. For this reason, we prepared the first issue of our magazine in 2024 in an almanac format that will cover these activities.
In the following pages, you can read about our works on many platforms, from Ministry visits to participation in the consultation meetings of our economic management from time to time, from our Assembly meetings to our Professional Committee meetings.
In this issue, you can also read the summary of our activities in many areas, from sustainability to digital transformation, from financial literacy to occupational health and safety, which we, as ICI, have focused on in recent years and have been intensively working to raise awareness among our members. I would especially like to emphasize that these awareness-raising efforts and trainings will continue in the coming period.
As I mentioned above, as we start to a new year, let's not forget that we are now in the age of speed. In this age, years and days pass much faster than before. New Year means new hopes and expectations. Our primary wish when we assess the year we leave behind is to at least have a better year than the last one. May the year 2024 bring peace and prosperity to the world and our country, and health, peace of mind and happiness to all of us. I wish you a happy new year with my most sincere feelings.
Erdal Bahçıvan
Istanbul Chamber of Industry
Chairman