Turkish economy board confers ‘commercial diplomacy’ awards

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkiye's Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) gave out 12 awards for “commercial diplomacy” in six categories over the weekend.

The event was part of the DEIK Business Council’s Ordinary General Assembly, where new chairs were also selected for 147 business councils.

Speaking at the assembly, Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Mus said DEIK has a unique corporate communications capacity with the business council’s platforms in almost every country in the world.

He said the ministry will always support DEIK and its commercial diplomacy activities in all corners of the world.

Despite rising protectionism in trade and the deep impact from the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy, Turkish businesspeople continue their activities successfully, he underlined.

Mus said that in the recent period, commercial and political rules and tolerances were questioned.

"DEIK business council presidents and members have achieved to maintain their commercial diplomacy activities in a strong manner."

Touching on Turkiye's export success by exceeding an historical threshold in 2021 ($225.4 billion), he congratulated DEIK members, who are the backbone of the country's export-based growth strategy, for these achievements.

"We aim to increase our current service exports to $100 billion with the new structure and strengthened support programs that we have created within our ministry," he added.

Nail Olpak, the head of DEIK, said the board expects an increase in commercial diplomacy activities from the business council presidents.

While there were single candidates for many councils, there were some multiple candidates for some councils, Olpak said, adding this situation is normal, even necessary.

Mentioning the pandemic process, when several countries have been facing supply bottlenecks, he noted that Turkiye is hopeful for its future because it did not break supply chains.

Despite the risks from the pandemic and inflation, the global economy is expected to increase by 5% and foreign trade by 6.7% in 2022, he said.

"This shows that there is a serious potential on the investment and export side for our country."