Life

Trusting Our Country

12 February 2014

As the original texts are written in Turkish, English translation is provided for non-Turkish readers. The author apologizes in advance for any and all possible changes and losses in meaning due to translation.

I was in Germany recently. I was invited as a speaker to a meeting where the leaders of the largest SMEs all over the world would gather. They asked me questions about Turkey and the current situation. I told them about Turkey. Since the theme of the meeting did not cover political content, I tried to answer questions in an economic sense. I must say that Turkey is a great focus of attention. At this meeting, I witnessed it once more.

While assessing the situation in Turkey, rather than telling about the difficult times or existing problems, I wanted to put my thoughts on paper in a forward-looking, future-oriented manner. Actually, as a business person, I think that we should assess our country in this context and globalize out of this perspective. Of course, I am not saying we have no problems; we have challenges and problems, but we must focus on solving them. We owe a lot to Turkey and the future of Turkey and we have a responsibility. I think we should reflect our trust in our country to the outside world.

Life is a continuous exercise of problem solving

It would not be wrong to describe our present time as a “difficult period” for our country. In the short term, we may face some economic problems, but this does not change the fact that Turkey’s future in the medium-long term is bright.

Considering the future of countries in the medium and long term is a much more accurate approach. Turkey is a strong country. We have a young population that is open to innovative thinking and has a relatively high level of education. Our average age is 29. Again, we have a robust financial system built upon the lessons learned from a crisis. And the growth or potential of a country cannot be measured by its performance in one year only. Fluctuations may occur from time to time, not only in Turkey, but anywhere in the world. The important thing is to confront the problems and overcome them without ever being pessimistic about our future, and without forgetting “what we actually are and what we are capable of” or “who we are” as the old saying goes.

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