Marc De Buck, gedeputeerde Annie Mervillie, gemeenteraadslid

As member of the Provincial Government of the Province of East-Flanders in charge of Economic Affairs and International Relations I would like to heartily welcome you all here at this Turkey Business Forum organised on the occasion of the participation of Turkey as host country at the 64th edition of Accenta – International Trade Fair of Flanders.

In 2005, a broad range of institutions and organisations decided to create a cooperation platform around the participation of the annual guest of honour on Accenta. It was the start of a very fruitful cooperation for which I am very grateful. One of the returning events is the organisation of a special business forum with focus on the guest of honour. Four years ago, the first edition of this Business Forum was immediately a major success. Thanks to the longstanding cooperation of our Provincial Government with the Chinese province Hebei we succeeded in attracting the People's Republic of China – Province of Hebei as host country - province on the 60th edition of Accenta. In 2006, there was the participation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam including an important business delegation and the organisation of the Vietnam business forum. Again a very fruitful seminar! The third edition hosting South Africa became a success thanks to the good relations of the City of Ghent with the South-African province Freestate and last year with guest country India the Business Forum was organised already for the fourth time. Also for this years' edition we can present a very interesting programme.

A guest of honour like Turkey opens off course a lot of opportunities. Thanks to its structural reforms and successful macro-economic policy, Turkey became in recent years one of the fastest growing economies in the world. For foreign entrepreneurs Turkey is an interesting investment- and export market. An important asset is also its unique geographic location, bordering the Balcan, the Middle East and the Caucasus, through which Turkey can act as a leg up for trade and investment in this important region. Doing business in Turkey, undoubtedly one of the most important growth markets in the near future, raises obviously a long series of remarks and questions. This forum aims at providing you with a better insight into the opportunities and challenges existing in Turkey.

A panel of top speakers and Turkey experts will take the floor in a few minutes and I think we have succeeded in attracting a nice panel.

• Mr Raf Pauwels, the Flemish economic representative in Turkey, played an important role in the preparation of this Business Forum. We are very grateful, mr managing director Allaert, that mr Pauwels could be present here today and will give his view on doing business in Turkey.
• It is also a big honour to have two of our Flemish top companies present here today: Mr. Luc Vandenbroucke, who is Senior Executive Vice-President of Barco and Mr. Yvan Lippens, Steelcord Europe Operations Manager of Bekaert. For both companies Turkey is important, not only as sales market but also as country for production. I am – together with you – very curious how they evaluate the present opportunities in the Turkish market.
• I am also very happy that Metakor, represented by mr Maddens, Area Sales Manager, has agreed to take the floor on this seminar. Large companies have certain flexibility and capacity advantages which is logically less the case for small and medium enterprises. I know that Metakor has put already a lot of effort in its internationalisation towards Turkey. It will be interesting not only to hear the nice side of this story but also to get some nuances in doing business in Turkey.

After the question and answers session, moderated by mr Pauwels, who is in fact a former journalist if my information is correct, mr Koen Allaert, CEO of Flanders Investment and Trade will give the closing speech.

Thanks to the participation of Turkey on this edition of the Trade Fair, the economic programme not only includes this Business Forum but also 3 other activities. Considering the important amount of Turkish construction companies in Belgium, a seminar specifically for the construction industry took place yesterday. In cooperation with the port of Ghent a port seminar will be organised here in Flanders Expo on Wednesday. Unique for this edition is the organisation of an info market for Turkish entrepreneurs in Flanders on Thursday on which the Turkish entrepreneurs will be informed as good as possible on all different aspects of doing Business in Flanders.

Off course, to organise all these economic events, we worked together with a lot of different partners which I would like to thank very much for the exemplary cooperation. Allow me to explicitly name them: the City of Ghent, the Port of Ghent, Voka–Chamber of Commerce, Unizo and Uniekon. Also special thanks to Flanders Investment and Trade which played an important driving role in the organisation in the economic part of this edition of Accenta. You can be proud of your team, Mr. Allaert!

Off course I hope to welcome you all on these other activities too and would like to wish you a very interesting business seminar.

Thank you very much for your attention.