Ecouraging Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Turkey by Douglas Silliman, DCM

December 15, 2009

Chargé D’Affaires Douglas Silliman and Adana Principal Officer Daria Darnell Meet with Business Leaders in Gaziantep

Roundtable with Gaziantep Business Leaders  

I'm delighted to be here today to have a dialogue with you about entrepreneurship, to share thoughts about its importance and about how we can work to encourage entrepreneurial opportunities here in Turkey.

In his June 4 speech in Cairo, President Obama announced the U.S. will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship in early 2010 to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.  Through this Summit, the United States seeks both to join existing efforts and to inspire new efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities.  

I hope during today’s roundtable, we can discuss how to increase economic opportunity, set the right conditions for entrepreneurship, and ultimately how we can create new jobs and increase global prosperity.  This will be achieved through knitting together a network of successful entrepreneurs, investors, academics, non-profits, foundations, and business leaders who are invested in promoting business and social entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurial leadership of associations like ÇUGIAD can make a difference in boosting Adana’s economic potential – invigorating it to become an engine of innovation in the southern Mediterranean region.  Potential for entrepreneurship in the agribusiness, energy, and tourism sectors is abundant.  Adana’s commerce and industry leaders can network to create dynamic leadership, adopt innovative technologies, and become an important exporter to neighboring countries. 

Entrepreneurs have a vision and the courage to follow it, and the result is more jobs, more prosperity, and new innovation, as well as the opening of entirely new fields of business.  Just 15 years ago, almost no one worked with the Internet -- today there are millions of people employed in Internet-related fields, generating billions of dollars in revenue.

We all know the stories of companies like Hewlett-Packard that started in a garage and turned into a global computing giant.  But equally important are the smaller stories of people who take out a small loan with little more than a dream and turn it into a successful business – as Hacı Ömer Sabancı did in the 1930s.

Turkey is exceptional with its thriving, open market and lively entrepreneurial sector.  Indeed, much of Turkey’s economic success in recent years can be attributed to local entrepreneurs.  This region has played a key role in driving that process. Turkey is, in many ways, a model for other countries of how entrepreneurship can lead to rapid development.  

Economic freedom is a reliable determinant of a country’s ability to foster entrepreneurship.  The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom supports this:  the top five countries in its 2009 index are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand [U.S. is no. 6].  Out of the 183 countries on the Index, Turkey ranks 75, ranking above EU members like Italy, Poland and Greece.  

Entrepreneurship thrives if the right conditions are in place – a dynamic market, access to capital, a hospitable business climate open to new ideas, and an education system that molds entrepreneurial spirit from an early age.  

What I’d like to discuss with you is how we expand the traditional concept of entrepreneurship – how we embrace the full resources of the community to strengthen the infrastructure needed for entrepreneurship and innovation.  The state, educational institutions, businesses, family and society all play a role in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.

There is clearly a vital role for the educational system to play in providing the skill sets and tools for budding entrepreneurs to realize their goals.  In addition, cooperation between research universities and businesses can provide the funding for universities to conduct innovative R&D and provide a conduit for ideas for businesses to bring to market. 

So how can we best promote entrepreneurship? 

• enhancing access to capital;
• creating and supporting entrepreneur networks;
• fostering an entrepreneurial culture among high school and college students;
• promoting the education, training and mentoring of entrepreneurs;
• supporting and connecting social entrepreneurs;
• encouraging socially responsible ventures that are focused on doing well – and doing GOOD for the community;
• developing a policy environment that supports entrepreneurship;
• and providing tools and resources for expanding market access for entrepreneurs.

With that, I’d like to open the floor to discussion.