We Must Analyze Asia, the Center of Gravity of Global Trade

Türkiye-Asia Pacific Business Councils continue their activities with 19 Business Councils in 17 countries and 2 regions

With the motto “Our job is to carry our power to the world”, we continue our voluntary “Business Diplomacy” activities worldwide. DEİK, the window of the Turkish private sector to the outside world, has been carrying out its activities for 39 years based on voluntary membership and with 152 Business Councils spread all over the world. We continue our activities with our Business Councils, Counter Wing and Founding Organizations, and workmates.

Our agenda is as busy as ever. In addition to our routine organizations, we are organizing the 15th Türkiye Investment Conference in New York on September 23-24-25 with our President, Minister of Trade, Minister of Treasury and Finance, Minister of Energy, Minister of Industry and Technology, President of the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye and senior business representatives of both countries. Immediately afterward, on the 27th of September, we continue to work actively all over the world with our Round Table Meeting organized within the scope of the Germany- Türkiye JETCO Meeting in Berlin under the Presidency of our Minister of Trade Prof. Dr. Ömer Bolat and the relevant Minister.

Our Türkiye-Asia Pacific Business Councils, whose Coordinator Chairmanship is carried out by Reha Denemeç, President of the Vietnam Business Council and DEİK YTK Member, continues its activities with 19 Business Councils in 17 countries and 2 regions with the establishment of the Japan Business Council in 1986 and the Sri Lanka Business Council in 2014. We are in a process where the economic center of the world is shifting from the west to the east, and in particular to the Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific region. While the rise of China and India, the two giants of Asia, draws attention to this region, we observe a process in which strategies are being rewritten in the region.

The Asia-Pacific concept, which once connected the US to the Asian geography, is being replaced by the Indo-Pacific concept. With this concept, the Indian Ocean region is included within the existing Asia-Pacific borders. In this way, in addition to Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific, Indian power is likely to come to the fore in the Indo-Pacific. The People’s Republic of China, which started to open up to the outside world with its reforms at the end of the 70s, has become a global actor in the international economy.

With the development of Japan, South Korea, and China, as well as India and other major Asia-Pacific economies, Asian countries’ share of world trade has increased and their position in global value chains has strengthened. Over the years, Asia’s commodity groups subject to international trade have shifted towards industrial products, while their status as a consumption economy has increased with the expanding middle class. In this framework, the Asian region as a whole has increasingly become a center of gravity for global production and trade. We see that the locomotive of this vast geography is the Asia-Pacific region and, once again, the Indo-Pacific region.

On the other hand, the independence of the Turkish-origin states in Central Asia since the 90s has opened new economic as well as political dimensions in Türkiye’s relations with these countries with which Türkiye has a common language, history, and cultural ties. As DEİK, in our Asia Pacific Region, the developments related to ASEAN and RCEP with our ASEAN Working Group, and the foreign trade deficit we give to the region are among our most important topics. In addition, the possible effects of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and the concept of the Indo-Pacific, which may emerge as an alternative to the Asia- Pacific concept, are also under scrutiny.

Accordingly, in the new issue of our magazine, where we share with you the details of “Rising Value Asia and Türkiye’s Role”, Ambassador Nilvana Darama, Coordinator of the Re-Asia Initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye, shares her views on Türkiye’s Asian Opening Policy and we interviewed Murat Kolbaşı, President of DEİK/Türkiye- Hong Kong Business Council, on Asia Pacific countries. In addition, Reha Denemeç, President of DEİK/Türkiye-Vietnam Business Council, shared his views with us on the Belt and Road Initiative. In our magazine, you can also get information about many other contents ranging from travel articles to current issues.

I wish you a pleasant reading.