New Year, New Excitements, New Hopes…

We have left behind another busy year that we will remember with pride. 2025 was a year full of many activities for us: from our cooperation protocol with the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) to the ICI MEIP protocols we signed with many cities, to the establishment of the ICI Venture Capital Investment Fund, which we believe will secure the future of our Istanbul Chamber of Industry Foundation, to the training we provided to tens of thousands of people involved in production at our ICI Academy. 

Last month, we also held two very important events that have now become traditional. One of these was the Defense Industry Meetings, which we organized together with SAHA Istanbul and held for the seventh time in 2025.

As the Istanbul Chamber of Industry, our goal with this event is to increase and diversify the number of suppliers in the defense industry, thereby strengthening our competitiveness and maximizing local contribution to our defense industry.

As you can read in the following pages, this year's Defense Industry Meetings made a significant contribution to this end. Nearly 1,700 applications were made for bilateral meetings with the participation of our 18 main contractors and a total of over 2,800 bilateral meetings took place, which is the most concrete demonstration of our contribution to this process.

In addition, our main contractors participating in our panel on “Supply Chain and Sustainability in the Defense Industry” shared their valuable information and experience with our companies aiming to become suppliers.

Another highlight of the last month was the ICI Green Transformation Awards Ceremony, one of the strongest symbols of our Chamber's commitment to green transformation, which we organize every month.

With these awards, we highlight our companies that reduce their footprint in their production processes, increase energy and resource efficiency, make concrete contributions to the circular economy, and implement innovative and pioneering practices. These inspiring examples, which reinforce our confidence in the future of our industry, clearly show that we are not only adapting to climate change but also playing a role in generating solutions.

On this occasion, I would like to once again congratulate all our industrial organizations that implement environmentally-friendly products and projects and make sustainability an integral part of their corporate culture for their valuable work and the inspiration they provide to our sectors.

We held our December ICI Assembly meeting with the agenda “The Outlook for Our Economy and Industry as We Bid Farewell to 2025; The Goals and Expectations of Our Industrialists for 2026,” and as we do every year, and we presented our 2026 budget to the valuable opinions and suggestions of our Assembly members. I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank our esteemed Assembly members for their support in approving our 2026 budget, and wish our Chamber a prosperous and successful 2026.

We are starting the new year with new hopes and excitement. Hoping this year brings peace and prosperity to our country and the world, I wish you a year filled with health, happiness, and peace with your loved ones.

 Erdal Bahçıvan
Istanbul Chamber of Industry
Chairman of the Board of Directors