İstanbul'da Viyana Ekonomik Görüşmeleri

Mr Minister,
Excellencies,
Consul General,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you on the eve of the “Vienna Economic Talks – Istanbul Meeting” that will start officially tomorrow under the title of “The Economy as an Engine for the Development in the Countries of the Region of the Vienna Economic Forum”. Tonight we will share some views on the topic of “The Economy as an Engine for the Development of the Austrian-Turkish Relations”.

As the Austrian Ambassador to Turkey I can only fully underline that our bilateral economic relations play an utmost, important role in our bilateral relations overall. This was once more manifested on occasion of the recent visit of State President Gül to Austria between May 2-5 in response to the visit of Federal President Fischer to Turkey in May 2008. Though our political point of views might at some time be divergent ones, we, for sure, cannot state this with regard to our economic relations – maybe with the exception of the so far only Austrian wish that also more Turkish companies should invest in Austria.

To underline the importance of our bilateral economic relations I would like to briefly draw your attention to some facts: The year 2010 has a multiple significance for Austrian-Turkish economic relations: Not only was Turkey, with around 16 %, the country where the highest proportion of Austrian direct foreign investment went to, but was Austria also foreign investor No. 1 in Turkey with around 1.3 bil. Euro – leaving foreign investor no. 2, France, around 300 % behind.

Our bilateral trade has flourished as well last year overcoming not only the pre-crises data with an increase of around 40 % of Austrian exports to Turkey and an increase of roughly 11 % of Turkish exports to Austria but also by reaching the always aimed at no. of 1 bil. Euro Austrian exports to Turkey.

Without wanting to neglect any of the Austrian small and medium sized companies that play such an important role for the Austrian economy and in doing business with Turkey or foreign companies that engage with Turkey through their headquarters in Vienna, like e.g. Siemens, I would like however to mention the maybe most important ones that contributed largely to the fact that we reached the above mentioned investment and trade goals.

These are OMV with their now 100 % property of Petrol Ofisi, the gas electricity plant in Samsun and of course its Nabucco plans.

Furthermore I would like to mention Baumax, which after Samsun and Izmit will open still this year supermarkets in Izmir, Bodrum and Ankara,

or also a new development in the banking sector in the framework of which Bank Austria, being part of Unicredit, plans to have a network of 300 banks in Turkey until the year 2015. Already today Bank Austria makes a third of its profits from the so-called “Eastern Countries” from Turkey. Banks very often come in hand insurance companies; I am therefore also very happy that Vienna Insurance Company has already discovered the Turkish market.

Last but not least I would like to refer especially in this framework to Verbund with its Joint Venture with Sabanci, EnerjiSA, also the main sponsor of your conference these days in Istanbul. This joint venture not only distributes electricity in the capital Ankara up to the Black Sea, but also opens on a regular, almost monthly basis, if I may exaggerate, new power stations in Turkey – be they water, gas or wind driven. It gave me therefore also a great pleasure to have participated some two weeks ago in the decoration of Mrs Güler Sabanci with the Vienna Schumpeter-Prize by the mayor of Vienna, Häupl, and the former Austrian Chancellor, Vranitzky, in the same premises here. This Schumpeter-Prize is the already second Austrian decoration for Mrs Sabanci and I am personally, as a woman, very proud of this fact – let me just in paranthesis mention that by far more Turkish companies are led by women than Austrian ones. By the way decorating successful Turkish businessmen or women who have contributed to the development of bilateral economic relations will be continued – in the past we could e.g. decorate TOBB-President Hisarciklioglu, Mr. Kocabiyik from Borusan and Mr. Arkas for his yearlong cooperation with Schenker.

Let me in this context also mention two Turkish cities that have due to heavy Austrian economic involvement also flourished in other aspects of our bilateral relations and thus become so-called Austrian “hubs” in Turkey. One of those cities is Izmir with four Austrian investments of Mayr-Melnhof, Mondi and Chrysamed in addition to an Austrian Honorary Consulate, the Austrian lead famous excavations in Efes, the hugest library of literature of the German speaking countries, run by an Austrian-Turkish family in Ürkmez and further close cooperation with the universities of Izmir and between the Summer music school in Urla and the Salzburg Mozarteum. By the way Austria will also be the host country of this year’s Izmir fairs with the participation of around 150 Austrian companies – you are of course all welcome to participate as well.

The second city in this respect is Samsun on the Black Sea; the Black Sea region is, as you might know, one of today’s priorities of the Austrian foreign policy – with the OMV gas plant, Baumax, an Austrian Honorary Consulate and an Austrian Library at the University, and, by the way, the most beautiful Atatürk statue in Samsun has been produced by the Austrian sculpturer Krippel. A Krippel-street has been opened recently in Samsun.

Izmit/Kocaeli is by the way also an almost “Austrian” city, where around 10 Austrian companies have their research or production centers.

My contribution would of course be incomplete without mentioning the Austrian Turkish bridge builder Dogudan who has conquered the world with his DO&CO catering from Istanbul and high quality dining and hotel facilities in Vienna and around the world.

But to show you also the increasing significance of Turkish engagement in the Austrian economy coupled with cultural interest I would like to mention BORUSAN which not only is the main sponsor of the Efes Foundation but also is sponsoring the Salzburg Festival for three years; the Borusan orchestra was in 2010 the first Turkish orchestra in history to have participated in the opening of the Salzburg Festival.

As a side effect let me just briefly mention in addition that the participation of Austria in EU Twinning projects in Turkey also contributes very much to the development of further economic relations as it was recently the case in the field of agriculture and environment technology – both fields in which Austria has so far participated in the highest number of bilateral EU Twinning projects between Austria and Turkey. The recent visit of the Austrian Minister for Agriculture, Environment, Forestry and Water, Berlakovich, has to be seen in this framework.

By concluding I would like to draw your attention to the newly created “Österreichische-Türkische Zusammenarbeit/ Austrian Turkish Cooperation - ÖTZ” that – as an overarching organization for all kind of co-operations between Austria and Turkey – also of course aims to incorporate the economic side of our cooperation. Leaflets can be found here and participation would greatly be appreciated.

I would like to wish us all an increase of the economic interaction between Austria and Turkey – which, taking into account the huge Turkish economic growth rate – will maybe not be so difficult from the side of the interest of Austrian companies. On the other hand I also hope that this economic engagement of Austrian companies will be sustainable and not interrupted by deficencies in the rule of law in Turkey.

Finally I would like to thank former Vice Chancelor Busek as well as Ambassador Kirtcheva to bring the Vienna Economic Talks already for the second time to Turkey, hoping that they will spread in the same way as they did in other counties, thank the Austrian Consul General for hosting us here in our beautiful palace, thank Verbund, Sabanci and EnerjiSA as well as Siemens, Freshfields Brookhaus Deringer, Austrian Airlines, OMV, Bärenbatterien, DEIK, SeeNews, CD and Evalanche for their sponsorship.