The Stars of the Business Diplomacy Shine Out

Organized by the Foreign Economic Relations Board for the third time this year, the DEİK Business Diplomacy Awards have been held in Istanbul on January 15, 2021.  The DEİK Business Councils were deemed worthy of 12 awards in 6 categories within the scope of the activities they have performed. The Business Diplomacy Award Ceremony was hosted by Nail Olpak, President of DEİK, with the participation of Mehmet Muş, Trade Minister of the Republic of Türkiye, DEİK Business Council Chairpersons, DEİK Executive Board Members, and businesspeople.

At the DEİK Business Diplomacy Award Ceremony, volunteer ambassadors of business diplomacy were awarded in the fields of ‘Sponsorship and Budget Management’, ‘Member Relations and Acquisition’, Media Visibility’, ‘Relations with Stakeholders’, ‘Executive Board Process Management’, and ‘Outstanding Performance’.

Trade Minister Muş: “We will support DEİK’s business diplomacy activities all over the world”

Drawing attention to DEİK’s global power in business diplomacy and its corporate communication capacity in international trade, Trade Minister Mehmet Muş said, “DEİK has a unique corporate communication capacity with the Business Council Platforms it has established with counterpart organisations in almost every country in the world. A total of 147 Business Councils, 6 of which being sectoral and 1 being special purpose, Chairpersons and Members of the Board of Directors within this network have been duly fulfilling their duty of guiding business circles in the transforming global economy. In this sense, as the Ministry of Trade, we will always keep supporting DEİK. We will support DEİK’s business diplomacy activities all over the world. We will make your job easier by opening the way for you.”

Emphasizing that Turkish businesspeople maintain their activities successfully despite the rising protectionism walls in trade and the Covid-19 pandemic inflicting deep wounds on the global economy, Trade Minister Muş said, “In this process, the rules and tolerances that we are accustomed to in the commercial, political, and institutional sense were again subjected to thorough questioning. On such a ground, DEİK Business Council Chairpersons and DEİK members have succeeded in maintaining their business diplomacy activities in a strong way. DEİK, our power in the global value chain, reinforces the success of our business world through Business Councils around the world. In 2021, the activities of our Business Councils and businesspeople under DEİK with business circles and private sector organisations of many countries for the vision of the green economy, renewable energy, entrepreneurship, e-commerce, and the EU Green Deal have been very valuable in terms of preparing Turkish business circles for radical transformations in the global economy.”

Olpak: “We are glad for today, hopeful for tomorrow”

Expressing that countries that did not experience disruptions in their supply chains during the pandemic process recovered faster, while other countries recovered slowly, resulting in an asymmetrical growth, Olpak said, “We are glad for today and hopeful for tomorrow, as we are at the forefront of the countries that did not break the supply chain. Despite the risk of pandemic and inflation, the global economy is expected to grow by 5 per cent and foreign trade by 6.7 per cent in 2022. This shows that there is significant potential in terms of investment and export for our country, which demonstrated a 33 per cent increase in exports in 2021. As DEİK, our main goal with our 147 Business Councils is to utilize this potential in the most effective way.  Our expectation from each of our business councils separately is to take firm steps to numerically improve our relations with that country or sector in our favor and to contribute to this matter in all our foreign economic relations, in addition to our priority to increase our exports.” We have separate targets and agendas in each region, in our country’s business diplomacy activities this year. We have many topics such as our activities to increase our trade volume with the US, updating the Customs Union with the EU and the Green Deal, the new era in trade after the Agreement Establishing African Continental Free Trade Area, and the effects of China’s Belt and Road on our country. As the volunteer ambassadors of the DEİK family, we will keep moving forward on our way by acting as a bridge between our country and the world through our business diplomacy activities.”

OUR AWARDED BUSINESS COUNCILS

SPONSORSHIP AND BUDGET MANAGEMENT AWARD

DEİK/Türkiye-U.S. Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Kuwait Business Council

MEMBER RELATIONS AND ACQUISITION AWARD

DEİK/Türkiye-Iraq Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Montenegro Business Council

MEDIA VISIBILITY AWARD

DEİK/Türkiye-U.S. Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Nigeria Business Council

RELATIONS WITH STAKEHOLDERS AWARD

DEİK/Energy Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Finland Business Council

EXECUTIVE BOARD PROCESS MANAGEMENT AWARD

DEİK/Türkiye-Iran Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Hong Kong Business Council

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE AWARD

DEİK/Türkiye-Azerbaijan Business Council

DEİK/Türkiye-Romania Business Council