On 27th of February, we were at the Symposium “POLAND-TURKEY The Horizons of Economic Cooperation – Chances and Challenges for Polish investors” which was held at the Polonia Palace Hotel, in Warsaw.
When we entered the hotel at 10:30, a tasty breakfast was waiting for us. Later, we took our name tags and walked to the auditorium with all Polish-Turkish businessmen and statesmen.
Turkey’s Ambassador in Warsaw Yusuf Ziya Özcan made the first speech at the Symposium. Özcan has mentioned of Poland-Turkey relations: “The next year, 2014, we will celabrate 600th years of the relations between Poland and Turkey. We should make great announcement to inform all the world about this great news and work on this celebration as much as we can.”
After the Ambassador Özcan’s speech, Turkey’s Trade Chief Advisor in Warsaw, Koray Akgüloğlu was with us to talk about trade relations between Poland and Turkey. He showed the reports of IMF’s relations with Turkey. Additionally, he mentioned about dynamic and young generation in Turkey.
The participants were very interested in the slides which Koray Akgüloğlu presented. After his great speech, his colleague from Ankara was with us to talk about investment in Turkey for international investors.
Director of Salans International Law Firm Galip Selçuk, KPMB Turkey’s Manager Abdulkadir Kahraman and ERSTE Securities Research Development Manager Can Yurtcan were at the Symposium to talk about investment in Turkey.
Manager of The Polish-Turkish Chamber of Commerce Marek Nowakowski was also present at the symposium and Director of Gulermak Holding (Gulermak is constructing the second line of the Warsaw subway, one of the biggest investment projects in Poland), Mustafa Tuncer initiated a discussion on the cultural differences between the Poles and the Turks in business.
After them, General Manager of POTIAD(Businessmen Association of Poland-Turkey) Sait Büyükbayrak gave a very nice speech in Polish. Then he answered the questions from the participants.
He was undoubtedly one of the names that marked the symposium: Akfel Group’s Executive Board Member and Manager of Vistula Group of Universities Mehmet Orhun Eskici. He started to talk about his experiences at the beginning of living in Poland as an investor. Then, the speech has continued with Turkish idioms and he made everyone laugh. Eskici mentioned about differences between Poland and Turkey. Eskici said also: “I had meetings in many different countries. I saw so many different capitals. But Poland has a different potential. Better than all.” Additional, he talked about business system in Turkey: “A Turk cannot say ‘I do not know’ Whatever you ask, we do not have opposite form of ‘I know’ in Turkey, in Business areas. Because Turkish young generation is ready to get more knowledge about everything to handle problems whatever they have.” Everyone in the hall clapped after his impressive speech.
Later on, we went to the restaurant of the hotel, for the Business Lunch. Participants had chance to meet up with investors and ask their questions at the lunch.
The symposium was quite impressive for the investors and participants. We are also glad that we were at The Symposium “POLAND-TURKEY The Horizons of Economic Cooperation – Chances and Challenges for Polish investors”
The Symposium was organized by The Polish-Turkish Chamber of Commerce, the National Chamber of Commerce and the Polish-Turkish Business Council.
Photo © Said Murat