Dear guests, valued participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to be with you for the Ministerial Conference which will be held on the revival of Silk Road in framework of the 31st IRU World Congress and I would like to welcome the guests who have come to our country for this event.

I am also very pleased to see among you the respectable statesman President Gorbachev, who has been a leader in establishing the new world order of today and to host him here in Istanbul, because as he also kindly mentioned a moment ago, he is one of the leaders who contributed to not only the changes in his region and the countries in the Soviet Union, when a new world was being established, but also contributed to new changes the world over; he is a person who left his tracks and mark. As a result, the new political order also started to bind us together with more collaboration, to work together more and to be more interdependent when needed. This happened thanks to the foresight of President Gorbachev, thanks to his anticipation, taking brave steps and his leadership, so I render my sincere thanks to him here today for spreading and defending his ideas so strongly all over the world. The world today also has its problems, and he is an important voice in bringing awareness of these problems such as famine, climate change and other humanitarian events, and I also congratulate him on this.

Dear participants,

Globalisation actually did not emerge only as a result of the big changes in electronics; undoubtedly, developments in electronic life link the world together and make the world a small village while making it possible for us to track from our side of the world what jobs and events there are on the other side. But it is a fact that transportation also makes great contributions to globalisation. In that sense, I believe that this Congress is very important and is going to make a big contribution to developing collaboration between countries.

In today’s world, the removal of walls and the winding up of the cold war almost makes it mandatory for countries to collaborate more with each other. It is to the extent that whoever has competition power in the basic principles of the economy, needs to take the path of producing that product more and selling it more. The legal infrastructure to make this process easier is also becoming faster in the world. Several leading institutions like the World Trade Organization are making new agreements. New standards are being developed to spread world trade and make it easier; customs standards are being rearranged and this is encouraged. Collective customs unions are being formed and free trade agreements are being signed.

All these developments are encouraging everybody to trade more. Of course, when countries are making big advances, making big investments, being successful in very important moves for economic growth, a side effect of this is that trade is also improving. These developments in trade and economic growth bring forward the sector of transportation.

Consequently, you are a sector that plays an important role in world trade in the growth, expansion and improvement of countries.

Turkey has been very successful in this area. I am sure those of you who pay close attention to these issues already know this but the people who do not follow these issues because they are not within their areas of interest, but hear about the reality today, would be surprised by Turkey’s success on this subject and would praise it.

As President Gorbachev mentioned before, there are several reasons underlying this success: Turkey is a part of the free market economy but transportation and land transportation are the leading sectors that the government has not interfered with for years and left completely to the free market. This is the case for both transportation of freight and transportation of people. The market found its own balance in Turkey so well that there is bus services to all cities, villages and towns of Turkey, there is complete transportation, and the governments have no role in this respect except in building the roads.

The transportation sector used this advantage very well and Turkey is now one of the leading countries in transportation in Europe and in the world. Now we promote it even more. That is one of the reasons why holding this meeting here in Istanbul is also meaningful. I congratulate all the institutions that put in an effort, not only the Union of Chambers and Transporters Union in Turkey, but also the International Road Transport Union who support it and I would like to thank them all.

In the future, transportation is not going to lose its importance. Even if transportation is also done by ships, trains and large planes, the fact is that if the most efficient, fastest, door-to-door transportation keeps its stability, it is going to be done on land. The priority of governments is to make investments in the best way and to use forward planning on this subject.

Turkey has been taking big steps on this area within the last years. On one hand, while double roads were built in Anatolia, we continued building highways, the last example of this being the Black Sea highway. In the meeting we held in the Balkans that you saw on the big screen a while ago, we gave a start to the fleet of from the International Road Transport Union that is circumventing around Black Sea. Most parts of this are in Turkey. We have almost finished the Turkey stage. You can take the highway from Istanbul to Artvin. I believe that this is also going to be completed in the other regions around Black Sea.

I also believe that the Silk Road will one day reach to the middle of Asia as it used to. Actually, there are ongoing attempts at this too and Turkey is encouraging these initiatives strongly. We will see that the Black Sea road will one day get to Tiflis – and the distance is very short – between Bakü-Tiflis is being done via Georgia, then from there to Bakü, by taking the ferry from there to Askabat and we will see in 5-10 years that this road will get to Alma-Ata and to the Chinese border. Maybe it will not even take 10 years because during the visits I paid to these countries and in the speeches I gave there, I saw that all these roads are already planned in those countries and their investments are going on.

I am telling you this because I want to emphasise that Turkey places a lot of importance on the revival of the Silk Road, which is the main theme of our meeting. This is not only the case in Turkey, but we are in close collaboration with all our friends and sister countries along this route and I believe that, in less than 10 years, probably within 5 years, we will see that all these roads will become highways.

As trade improves more, well-being will spread more. There will be more production, improvement will be more evident and everybody who is a part of it will take their share of it. You are one of the most important pedestals of this. I wish you every success.

I also think that this meeting is a good opportunity to present Turkey and to present Istanbul, making our country that joins two continents known better, its potential being seen more. I want to thank very much everybody who put their efforts into this meeting, from Turkey and outside Turkey. I also want to welcome you, the participants, again and I wish you every success.

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