On May 8, 2004 Turkish-American Businessmen’s Association held a dinner in honor of Retired General Daniel Christman, Senior Vice President in charge of International Relations of the American Chamber of Commerce, Gary Litman, Senior Vice President in charge of Europe and Eurasia, and Peter Hans Keilbach, Senior Representative in charge of Europe at the same Chamber, who were visiting Turkey. At the dinner where Mr. Kemal Unakıtan, the Minister of Finance, also participated and made a speech there were about 150 guests including chief executive officers and managers of US companies operating in Turkey, press members, businessmen and TABA members.

The Turkish and US businessmen coming together at the dinner held discussions on the expansion of trade with the USA, on increasing US investments in Turkey and on ensuring companies from the two countries to engage in joint enterprises various sectors and in third countries having good potentials. During the discussions, determinations were made as to the necessity to increase investments in Turkey as well as to commercial, legal, bureaucratic and regulatory problems facing both the Turkish companies doing business with the USA and US companies operating in Turkey.

Making an opening and welcoming speech at the dinner, Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem, the President of TABA, first of all expressed that it was great honor for TABA to host in Turkey representatives from the American Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest trade organization with its members over 3 million from various sectors all over the world. Pointing out that they expected a shift in relations with the USA toward employment in industry rather than food and tourism sector, Mr. Erdem drew attention to Jordanian businessmen having more business with the USA than Turks, who have been a strategic partner to the USA for years. Mr. Erdem also referred to the necessity to put into practice programs encouraging cooperation between SMSEs as soon as possible. Mr. Erdem added that he viewed Turkey’s EU membership as complementary and supportive to her existing relations with the USA and that he believed Turkey would enrich the EU in terms of both security and economy.

‘We are ready to give every support to the President Erdem, who readily deals with any problems of US companies in Turkey and exerts utmost efforts towards solution, thus ensuring positive results very soon. We view TABA as the guarantee for the US investors in Turkey,’ says General Daniel Christman, Senior Vice President in charge of International Relations of the American Chamber of Commerce, who also indicated that they were proud of successful activities by Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem, the President of TABA and their official representative in Turkey.

General Christman commented that they found the policies pursued by Turkey highly successful and were impressed with the risk management and leadership qualities of the Prime Minister Erdoğan and indicated their readiness to their best to get the embargo in Cyprus lifted. General Christman said Turkey had become an attractive country as regards foreign capital following the reforms. He underlined that confidence to the Turkish economy was increased, new arrangements had been successfully put in place and direct foreign capital, privatization and significant progress had been made with other structural reforms and added, ‘the Prime Minister Erdoğan makes Turkey an attractive country for foreign capital”. Drawing attention to Turkey and the USA, once strategic partners, having become neighbors as from the Iraqi War, Mr. Christman noted that the volume of trade between the two countries had risen to 7 billion dollars, but US investments in Turkey were still below 3 billion dollars and informed that the projects prepared to increase the volume of investment would be immediately put into practice.

Pointing up the need for some supports to promote trade between Turkey and the USA, General Christman indicated that the private sector in Turkey assumed a diplomatic role in that issue and there were some bureaucratic obstacles to be cleared. Christman said that establishing a company should not take longer than 24 hours, the judges should be independent and intellectual property rights should be protected. Claiming that presenting Turkey as a model for the countries in the region would deteriorate her relations with neighboring countries, resulting in harms to the reform process, Christman added, ‘Turkish businessmen wishing to engage in joint investments find difficulty in doing business as this is not a method preferred in the USA.’

In his address to the participants at the meeting, the Minister of Finance Kemal Unakıtan drew attention to the insufficiency trade between Turkey and the USA and said that Turkey needed investments from sectors other than textile too and that interests were of primary importance in international trade. Reminding that the tightening in relations having occurred during the letter of authority was released after the US intervention in Iraq, the Minister of Finance emphasized that oil, flour, water, medicine, electricity and even petroleum were sent from Turkey to Iraq. Mr. Unakıtan required that economic and political stability should be cared for meticulously in Turkey, and referred to privatization in his speech by informing that Milli Piyango, Telekom, the dams, roads etc. were included in the list of privatization. Unakıtan also indicated that there were serious works underway in the area of intellectual property rights.

The dinner held at Hotel Hilton, Ankara was participated, in representation of the American Chamber of Commerce, by Retired General Daniel Christman, Senior Vice President in charge of International Relations, Gary Litman, Senior Vice President in charge of Europe and Eurasia and Peter Hans Keilbach, Senior Representative in charge of Europe, who were visiting Turkey as the guest of TABA, as well as by Kemal Nehrozoğlu, the Secretary General to the President, the State Minister Ali Babacan, the State Minister Kürşat Tüzmen, the State Minister Güldal Akşit, the President of TOBB Rıfat Hisarcıklıoğlu, and chief executive officers and managers of US companies operating in Turkey.

Thanking Dr. Zeynel Abidin Erdem, the President of TABA, for the opportunity to address to such a select society, General Christman said, ‘Today we have laid strong foundations for the projects that will be launched to increase American investments in Turkey. This is a start of extreme importance.’

At the dinner held by TABA, the State Minister Ali Babacan, the State Minister Kürşat Tüzmen and the State Minister Güldal Akşit were presented with a certificate of honorary membership to the American Chamber of Commerce.

For the whole text of the speech of Chairman Dr. Zeynel Abidin ERDEM click to

For the whole text of the speech of General Daniel Christman, Senior Vice President for International Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce click to

For the whole text of the speech of Turkish Minister of Finance, Kemal Unakıtan click to