In celebration of 8th of March “International Women's day” our webinar titled "Women in foreign trade" took place on 9th March, Tuesday between 11.00-15.00 hours with joint initiative of TURKTRADE - Women's Leadership Development Committee one of Leadership and Development Committee of Ünsped Customs Brokerage
Mr. Hayrettin Çaycı, chairman of the board of Directors of TURKTRADE, made the opening speech at the meeting and many honorable speakers including our Deputy Minister of Trade Ms. Gonca Yılmaz Batur delivered speeches.
The deputy minister of trade Ms. Gonca Yılmaz Batur emphasized that today women have much more prominent roles in the political and economic scene of the powerful countries and highlighted that we are happy due to rising woman’s share in labor force each year in our country. She said that the presence of working women is the sine qua non for Sustainable Development, and women entrepreneurs play a very important role in the creation of competitive companies. Ms. Batur stated that their goals as the ministry are to rapidly increase the number of women entrepreneurs, to create their own networks for export, to create cooperatives by combining their labor and capital, and to contribute to the creation of a sustainable trading world free from stereotypes.
Chairman of the board of Directors of TURKTRADE Mr. Hayrettin Çaycı stated that, despite some developments and changes in the world, gender inequality is continuing and gender equality is a basic human right and effective participation of women that make up half of the country's population in making our country's Development Goals sustainable the in every field of life and in ensuring utilizing real potential of our country.
The speakers of the first session on “Women in Foreign Trade’ moderated by Ms. Zeynep Kuman, the General Manager of Ram Dış Ticaret A.Ş and member of the board of Directors of TURKTRADE were: Gonca Yılmaz Batur, our Deputy Minister of Trade, and Emine Perviz Erdem, President of Kagider. Guest speakers, each of whom has contributed to the fight for equality, as well as making a difference in their professional work lives delivered message that women's participation at all levels on the basis of equality of opportunity will increase our competitiveness and contribute to the sustainable growth of companies as in every sector. Also, the information they gave about the various and comprehensive studies carried out to increase women's participation in business life through the boards established within the Ministry of trade and the projects conducted within Kagider gave us hope.
In this session, information was also given about the “women in foreign trade” research project that Istanbul Bilgi University will jointly conduct with TURKTRADE. Dr. Pınar Artıran stated that the research in question was designed with the teachers of Bilgi University at the initiative of Turktrade and emphasized that any research in this area would be very valuable, as there are not enough studies on the gender impact of Foreign Trade and there are no produced data sets.
Speakers of second session on “Micro credit touch to exports” moderated by Dr. İnci G. Özkul, Avea Executive Co-Founder Dr. Pearl G. Speakers of the second session were: Founder Of Grameen Microfinance Program Of Turkey Prof. Dr. Aziz Akgül, Li & Fung Turkey CFO Bilge Gerek, Ayşe Aslı Yaman, Founder Of Aslı's Hobby World Design Workshop, and Nuray İnce the founder of the İnce Dowry House. Prof. Dr. Aziz Akgül specified that since 2003, 200,000 women have been brought into the economy by providing loans of more than 1 billion TL for the participation of low-income women in economic life. Even more striking is that all of these loans that have been used so far have been repaid.
Two female entrepreneurs who are micro-credit users also connected to the meeting and told how the credit they use changed their lives and how they exported in their business life, which they started with a loan as small as 1500 TL. Li &Fung CFO Bilge Gerek told that trade groups doing business on a global scale outsourced mainly from SMEs, in addition to supply of product they also manage production process control, quality control and logistics of the supply chain and thus supported them in many issues including finance and provide the necessary training for more efficient and effective production of small-to-midsize companies.
In the last session moderated by Fazilet Patır, Director of Corporate Communication of UGM; MTM Dış Ticaret Ltd. Şti., partner and President of the Turkish Down Syndrome Association Gün Bilgin, General Director of the ÇED Children's Education Association Melike Argi, founder and General Coordinator of KODA, Mine Ekinci, founder and Chairman of the board of Directors of the KALBEN Association Pelin Calışkanoğlu Ekşi, and President of the Nar women's Cooperative Nedret Gürdal were among the speakers. The theme of the relevant session was “Women who create benefit for society and the economy.” At the session to draw attention to women who break stereotype in different disciplines; we listened to social, societal change from our female leaders who make it a principle to solve problems instead of ignoring them, achievements of women as a presence in non-governmental organizations, realizing their own power, achieving unity to develop themselves and bring a voice in society and strengthening aspects of cooperation and benefit culture and existence of NGOs.
As a result, it is highlighted to contribute Turkey's social and economic development and to ensure sustainable economic development and to increase the number of Turkish women entrepreneurs creating economic value and to existing empower women entrepreneurs and integration of women entrepreneurs with the world.
Today, women appear in all areas as the main architect of good society, developing society and strong community structure. We wish that 8th March world working women's day shed light on, equality, independence, freedom, elimination of political and economic injustices, end of sexual discrimination, prevention of all kinds of violence against women, respectable life and human dignity ensuring working conditions worthy of human…
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