The banks phase of the Istanbul Financial Center was opened with a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan said the center will take Turkiye to a higher league in finance.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke at the opening ceremony of the banks stage of the Istanbul Financial Center.
President Erdogan stated that this opening has strategic importance.
Stating that we entered the last 3 days of Ramadan in the shadow of Kahramanmaras-centered earthquakes, Erdogan said, “We are trying to instill hope with the good news of both healing the wounds and being hope for our nation in these difficult days. We accelerate our investment and development moves without neglecting our brothers in the earthquake zone. We continue to bring our nation’s dreams together by saying that we do not stop, continue on the road, investment, service, and work.”
”ISTANBUL FINANCIAL CENTER WILL BRING TURKIYE TO A TOP LEAGUE IN FINANCE”
Expressing that they are excited about the opening of the first phase of the Istanbul Finance Center, which will take Turkiye to a higher league in finance, President Erdogan said that besides the centennial centers such as New York, London and Frankfurt in the world, there are also important financial centers such as Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong that were included in this list later on.
“Global finance’s center of gravity is shifting more and more significantly from west to east.” Erdogan said, “In this context, the increasing commercial competition between Asia and Europe and the geopolitical position of our country open new windows of opportunity for Istanbul. We have taken it one step further. We believe that Istanbul, which historically served as both a geographical and commercial bridge between the east and the west, has the potential to establish the same link between the financial markets today.”
Expressing that they announced that they will make Istanbul one of the world’s leading financial centers a few years after coming to power, Erdogan said, “And we did. Now we have created the physical conditions for this business.”
Emphasizing that they faced obstacles during their attempts, Erdogan continued his speech as follows:
“Who did we not fight? With whom did we not fight about this issue? We said, ‘We will move the Central Bank to Istanbul,’ and they came before us. We said, ‘We will move Ziraat Bank to Istanbul,’ and they stood on our way. What did they not do? They said the same thing about VakifBank. They all said the same thing. Because they have no knowledge of our ancient civilization and history. They do not know what happened in the history of finance in Turkiye, and just as Istanbul was a financial center of this country in history, it is now undertaking the task of being this financial center again.”
President Erdogan said that the center is a visionary project developed to strengthen Turkiye’s place in the world economy and to make the country a regional and, in the future, a global financial center.
Explaining that they decided to move the country’s leading institutions, including the Central Bank, public banks and the stock market, to Istanbul with the project they started to build in 2013, Erdogan said that they realized the most prestigious project of the country and the world with a total investment value of ₺65 billion.
Noting that this center is also an exemplary project with its environment-friendly, nature-friendly and zero-waste-compatible features, Erdogan said, “We are using the ₺600 million worth of funds obtained with the issuance of Turkiye’s first green lease certificate based on the construction contract, with environmentally friendly green buildings in our project. Our Istanbul Finance Center will meet all the needs of the business world with its 21 office buildings with a total area of 1.4 million square meters, a shopping center of 100 thousand square meters, a congress center for 2 thousand 100 people, a hotel, a parking lot for 26 thousand 500 vehicles and with the smart city model, and many more.”
“THIS WILL INCREASE OUR INVESTMENT POTENTIAL”
Pointing out that the Anatolian side of Istanbul has gained a different wealth after the European side, ErdoGan continued his words as follows:
“Istanbul Finance Center will make serious contributions to our country’s economy in a wide range with the start of domestic and foreign financial institutions to operate in the region. This center will create a new financial ecosystem in Istanbul, the meeting point of 3 continents. The coming together of our institutions scattered in different provinces and different parts of our city is the first step in the formation of this ecosystem.
In addition to all these, Istanbul Finance Center will increase our investment attracting potential by facilitating international capital flow. It will bring savings to the economy by directing the savings to new financial instruments. It will ensure the continuity of financial stability by financing large infrastructure projects. It will also accelerate the growth of predictability and employment in the economy.”
“WE WILL SUPPORT YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS”
President Recep Tayyip ErdoGan stated that they think that the Istanbul Finance Center will become a global base, especially in the fields of Fintech (Financial Technology) and participation finance, and said, “With the Participation Finance Strategy Document that we have published in the past months, we have determined our roadmap in this regard. Hopefully, we will soon share our national Fintech Strategy Document with our public and finance sector. While disseminating alternative financial instruments, we will also support young entrepreneurs working on financial technologies and blockchain technologies, who want to develop and invest in this field, and we will not leave them alone.”
Underlining that the center, which will make all these contributions to the country, is the product of 10 years of hard struggle and 10 years of hard work at every stage, Erdogan said that the real value of this center, what a strategic and visionary project, will be understood much better in the coming years.
Emphasizing that with the Istanbul Financial Center, he showed the will and courage to say “I am here,” in an area where Turkiye has been excluded for years, Erdogan wished that this center, which will rapidly grow the Turkish economy under the locomotive of the financial sector, would be beneficial to the country, and congratulated everyone, especially the Turkiye Wealth Fund and Emlak Konut, which contributed to the Istanbul Finance Center from the design stage to the present day.
“I DON’T FEEL DOUBT ABOUT THE COLOR OF OUR CRATE”
Recalling that Turkiye is in an election process to be held on May 14, President Erdogan said:
“We will go to the polls in 27 days and we will make a very critical decision regarding the future of ourselves, our children and Turkiye. We will make an important choice not only between candidates, political parties and alliances, but also between two different understandings. We believe that the choice of our nation will be in favor of the policy of works, services and investment, as it has been for the last 21 years. Our country’s economic development journey, which has been persistently, patiently and consistently for the last 21 years, will not be interrupted.
Our people, especially those who knew Turkiye before 2002, will never let go back from the democratic and economic gains they achieved by fighting and paying the price when necessary. Hopefully, on May 14, the national will be manifested once again, and our beloved nation will start the Century of Turkiye by saying ‘Bismillah’. As a politician who has been keeping the pulse of the squares and reading the language of the squares for 40 years of his life, I do not have the slightest doubt about the color of the ballot box, by Allah’s wish.”
“It turned out that the opposition had no vision to govern Turkiye”
Expressing that he wanted to express one more point regardless of the result, Erdogan said:
“Election periods are the days when politicians, political parties and alliances come to the scales. These are the days when everyone reveals whatever goals and visions they have for the future of the country. In this period, the nation listens to the political establishment, measures and weighs its promises, and gets an opinion about everyone’s diameter, capacity and horizon. Thus, it decides who and by which mentality it will be governed for the next 5 years. The time that has passed since the election date was announced has revealed some facts about both the economy of our country and the situation of the opposition. I regret to express that, by the way, it has been revealed that the opposition has no vision to govern Turkiye, to lead our country to its goals and our nation to its dreams. This process also showed why our country lagged behind before 2002, why there was a shortage of services and works in our country, and why our nation was condemned to years of absence, poverty and unemployment.”
“$300 BILLION WILL COME FROM ENGLAND”
Pointing out that there are many grave examples to justify his findings, Erdogan continued his words as follows:
“I don’t find it worth talking about countless rambling promises that have nothing to do with the real world, such as giving everything for free, begging for $300 billion from Western moneylenders, surrendering to IMF prescriptions. Can you imagine? He would bring $300 billion from England. It means that he also talked to loan sharks and agreed. They made promises to him in the air and on land. He just came here and transfers those words here.
Now here are the leaders of the financial sector. Do you believe in such a thing? Is that possible? Is it possible? I served as Prime Minister and Presidency in this country for 20 years, but I have never seen such nonsense, such a lie, deception in any leader in the world. But this poor man, unfortunately, has an SSK in his life, isn’t that the one who screwed it up? Late Savas Ay, if you were alive, you would have shown these to the whole nation again.”
President Erdogan said that they challenged the world with the city hospitals they built. Explaining that foreign leaders from foreign countries admired city hospitals, Erdogan continued his speech as follows:
“But do you know what Mr. Kemal says? ‘Let’s know what a build-operate-transfer is.’ What if you don’t know? Am I going to deal with you too? So if you have a little bit of determination, a little bit of determination, open the books and go through the books. Learn what build-operate-transfer is. Anyone who has enough knowledge of economics and mathematics to make a grocery account sees very well that the economy cannot be managed with these. Like us, our nation is following the tragicomic situation that the opposition has fallen into, either laughingly or sadly on behalf of the political establishment.”
Expressing that the nation will not forget that those who walked around the squares with the promise of 2 keys 25-26 years ago, also underlined that people know very well the promises of IMF bag dealers that will leave the country behind.
“This nation won’t forget how they disappeared, leaving the country with billions of dollars in debt.” Erdogan said:
“You know my brothers, but it happens, maybe he has a memory problem, you may have forgotten it. Now, there are those who are around the table, one of them I will not name, there is no need, you understand, we are in Davos. In Davos, Strauss-Kahn was then head of the IMF. We went out for a while, we are having a meeting with him. I said to him, ‘You are sending men every now and then and they are talking on behalf of administering Turkiye. Do you receive your installments? You are receiving. But you can’t rule Turkiye, it belongs to me to rule Turkiye. You can never interfere with this.'”
“THIS NATION DOESN’T FORGET HOW THE OFFICERS WERE PAID WITH THE DEBT FROM IMF”
Reminding that Turkiye owed $23.5 billion to the IMF at that time, Erdogan said that they had completed the debt by making the payments until 2013.
Referring to his relations with the IMF in the later period, Erdogan said:
“Then, the person who is now the spokesperson of the CHP and his partner, the person who was the head of the treasury for a while, what did they do together? They went to the hotel behind closed doors and negotiated with them on behalf of the IMF. They also gave us advice. That you will not be able to run this business without the support of the IMF. Why? There was trouble in the economy. No. We’re fine, we’ve moved on and we’re doing it. At the same time, our Central Bank’s foreign exchange reserves were $27.5 billion. During my prime ministry, we increased our foreign exchange reserves up to $135 billion. After 2013, we broke off our relationship with the IMF. The foreign exchange reserve of the Central Bank was on the record of a continuous increase, it increased. We don’t need it right now. And since this nation’s treasury is full of debts, the civil servant does not forget how their pensions are paid. Remember how civil servants’ salaries were paid back in those days. Whose era were these? That’s the CHP, these were the times. It was the time of the CHP. They have caused this nation a lot of suffering.”
RESPONSE TO THE ONION PRICE CRITICISM
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his words as follows:
“This nation will never forget how those who circulate with vague promises in the past screwed up the SSK and robbed the country. This nation will never forget how the populist rhetoric of the 1990s dragged Turkiye into an economic collapse. They never will. Dear friends, Turkiye should not be an insult to the Coptic for the sake of coming to the agenda, but I will say it exactly because it is a good word, ‘Where have he seen many dishonest politicians who sang circatin like the Coptic’. But until now, no politician in our country asked, ‘Will the nation eat the road?’ Look at the word. What’s in front of you? Professors do not get angry, Professors write: ‘Is it a bridge? Viaduct? Airport? Will people eat these? Tell me about onions, tomatoes.’ My Anatolian villager knows them very well. But you know the taste of onions, can you put the onion on the table and hit it and distribute it? They can’t distribute it, it spoils their luxury. The economy has become ignorant, hostile to work and service. Let alone understanding the economy, let alone being an accountant, no one who barely follows the world would make such a sentence. What if you didn’t have these viaducts, bridges and airports, how would we go from one end of Turkiye to the other?
Stating that the number of universities has increased from 77 to 208, Erdogan said that people asked, “Why do you need more?” Erdogan stated that they want universities in all 81 provinces and that they have increased the number so that there are no cities without universities.
Erdogan stated that students from different cities can go to university in their own cities without having to come to Istanbul or Ankara to study.
Expressing that there is one more thing that upsets him, Erdogan said, “First of all, the road is not a commodity that can be eaten. You should know this, Mr. Professor. It means that they did not teach you this in your education. Secondly, the road is inedible, but production becomes possible thanks to the road. The producer sells his crop. Tourists travel, industrialists export. The carrier carries the material. The road is inedible, but thanks to the road, investment comes, industry develops, the country develops, the economy grows, employment is created. Of course, the road is inedible, but thanks to the road, 85 million people both meet each other and take bread to their house and bring halal food. So the road is not just the road.”
”THIS TOMATOES AND POTATOES ARE GOING THROUGH THESE ROADS”
President Erdogan said that the road is not just the road, it is the backbone of the economy, production and industry, just like energy, technology and innovation.
Reminding that they say, “The road is civilization” at every opportunity, Erdogan said, “We have been investing in the transportation infrastructure of our country for this purpose for 25 years. Gentlemen need to know that this is how tomatoes and potatoes travel. Without these roads, we would not be able to deliver them to where the consumer is. For this, we are trying to connect our 81 provinces with each other and with the whole world, with roads, highways, bridges, airports, high-speed train lines and ports.”
Asking how they would deliver the needs to the disaster area in the earthquakes on February 6, Erdogan said, “On the one hand, our planes worked. On the one hand, our trucks worked. On the one hand, buses brought and took the passengers. On the one hand, we carried the earthquake victims from the earthquake zone to different parts of the country, from Ankara and Istanbul to these places. How? We said we will carry it for free. We moved it for free. Because the state is not royalty, it is a republic. We did that.”
Speaking about the Umraniye garbage dump, Erdogan said, “Who was the mayor there? He was a mayor from the CHP. And that dump exploded. And 39 of our citizens died there. Because that’s what CHP means. We turned it into a green national park later on. By building roads, we have provided Turkiye with a modern infrastructure and vision that can implement a strategic project by making it the Istanbul Financial Center.”
President Erdogan stated that besides all these, they have made it easier for CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his partners to travel from city to city by private plane by constructing roads and highways and building 31 new airports.
Stating that Kilicdaroglu said that they will sell the planes of the state when he comes to power, Erdogan said, “Well, now you are renting planes, you are going with him. It means that they have the opportunity to rent it. He travels with it. This nation will never transfer their planes to them, I hope. I believe in this. “
BANKS STAGE OF ISTANBUL FINANCE CENTER OPENED
Istanbul Finance Center will host many domestic and international guests with its 1.3 million square meters of office space, a shopping mall of 100 thousand square meters and a congress center for 2 thousand 100 people.
With the opening of the banks stage in the project, it is expected that important banks and financial institutions from Turkiye and abroad will also take place in the Istanbul Finance Center.
In the banks phase of the giant finance project, the relevant units of VakifBank, Ziraat Bank and Halk Bank became operational.
5 STAR HOTEL WILL PROVIDE SERVICE
Located within the Istanbul Finance Center, the 5-star hotel was designed for long-term accommodation and considering the needs of the visitors.
It will serve with a number of 325 rooms and approximately 80 room types suitable for long-term accommodation.
Source: NTV / Prepared by Irem Yildiz