"WE SHOULD DEVELOP LOGISTICAL AND TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE TO LINK THE COUNTRIES OF THE EAST TO EUROPE."
The Istanbul Chamber of Industry held its January meeting on Wednesday, the 25th. The agenda for the meeting was "The Importance of the Transportation, Logistics and Communications Sectors for the Long-term Competitiveness of Our Industry". Guest speaker at the meeting was the Minister of Transport, Communications and Maritime Affairs, Binali Yıldırım. Speaking at the meeting, the chamber's board chairman, C. Tanıl Küçük, said: "Turkey has many geographical advantages, which offer us a number of opportunities both as a logistical base and in terms of transit transportation. We need to know how to exploit those opportunities. We should develop infrastructure for linking the Caucasus, the Central Asian countries, Iran, the countries of the Middle East, even China, with Europe as part of an integrated plan with seaport and rail connections. We should revive the historic Silk Road, and we believe our Ministry should formulate its plans and projects around that vision. I would like to state here a point we regard as extremely important, namely, that logistics cannot be considered independently of production. Turkey is therefore compelled to maintain a high level of production and competitiveness in order to realize those targets."
Click here for the full
text and the Chairman's previous remarks at the Assembly