The agenda of the industry in Tekirdağ: Access to water and digitalization
We held the third session of the "Being Resilient in the New Era" meetings, which are organized in different cities in cooperation with Nasıl Bir Ekonomi Newspaper, on 27 September 2023 at the Çorlu Chamber of Commerce and Industry Enis Sülün Conference Center with live broadcasting.
In the session titled "Being Resilient in the New Era: Is Tekirdağ Ready for Tomorrow?", which was moderated by Hakan Güldağ, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nasıl Bir Ekonomi Newspaper, the following business people took part as speakers: İzzet Volkan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Çorlu Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Ahmet Çetin, the Chairman of the Çerkezköy Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Erdim Noyan, the Speaker of the Çorlu Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Mahmut Şahin, Secretary General of the Trakya Development Agency; Nüvit Kırçuval, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Çorlu Business People and Industrialists Association (ÇİSAD); Orçun Güven, Chief Sales Officer at Zer Sales and Digital Platforms Business Unit; Vahap Munyar, General Coordinator of Nasıl Bir Ekonomi Newspaper.
Tekirdağ performs 84% of the exports from the Thrace region
Being one of the three cities of the Thrace region along with Edirne and Kırklareli, Tekirdağ is among the top 10 cities in Türkiye in terms of socio-economic development.
Last year, Thrace contributed 2.5 billion dollars to the total national export of 254 billion dollars. In Thrace, 84% of this figure was performed by Tekirdağ.
In the session, the need for water and digitalization stood out for the resilience of Tekirdağ, which has an important role in the regional economy, in the new period.
While our speakers agreed that the water shortage, which has become a serious problem for the resilience of the region, should be solved, they also highlighted the issues of labor and employment.
"Another resilience on the agenda"
İzzet Volkan, Chairman of the Çorlu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, "Resilience came into our lives with the pandemic. In today's world, we are talking about another resilience with digitalization and green transformation," and pointed to the agenda items of the new era.
Ahmet Çetin, Chairman of the Çerkezköy Chamber of Commerce and Industry, mentioned the problems in the water supply in the region under the heading of green transformation and said, "We used to extract water from a depth of 80 meters 25 years ago; today, we can extract water from a depth of 500 meters. We need to transfer the water in Meriç and Tunca to the region."
Erdim Noyan, Speaker of the Çorlu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Board Member of the Organized Industrial Zones Supreme Organization (OSBÜK), touched upon the situation of OIZs in the region and shared that Tekirdağ hosted 9 of the 22 OIZs that have been rehabilitated and that the companies allocated in the OIZ could not access water, that they did not have electricity distribution licenses, and that they could not grow because they did not have their own land.
Nüvit Kırçuval, Chairman of the Çorlu Business People and Industrialists Association, stated that investments are allowed for the sectors that use less water in the region and shared that textile industrialists in the region have been experiencing a difficult situation.
Mahmut Şahin, Secretary General of Trakya Development Agency, mentioned the consultancy and planning provided on the problematic topics and said, "We can become more resilient by efficiently using our labor, raw materials, and energy resources as well as our processes."
Orçun Güven, Chief Sales Officer at Zer Sales and Digital Platforms Business Unit, emphasized the need for digitalization and stated that although the digitalization journey may seem costly to companies in the beginning, it ensures cost savings in the long run and added that 6.8% savings can be achieved through processes carried out with digital procurement solutions compared to procurement made by traditional procurement methods. Güven said, "As Zer, we know that it is possible to earn during procurement, and we shed light on this issue to our customers"
The session, which was also attended by Ahmet Sarıkurt, Mayor of Çorlu, ended with questions from the audience.
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