M. Avni Kiğılı - Uludağ Ekonomi Zirvesi Açılış Konuşması

Honorable Minister, esteemed representatives of the business world, distinguished guests, and members of the press — I greet you all with respect. Welcome to the Uludağ Economy Summit, our country's most important business and economic summit. We are in a period of rapid change in the global and local agenda. Throughout history, pandemics, major disasters, and wars have always been turning points that must be taken into account. However, due to evolving technologies, today we are all more interconnected than ever before. The experiences of the last three years have shown us that when someone in one corner of the world suffers, we all feel the pain. The theme selected for this year's summit — 'One World, Shared Future' — is therefore highly appropriate. As Hayat Holding, we are honored to host this meaningful organization.

Hayat Holding's journey began in 1937 with a small haberdashery shop in Sultanhamam. What guided this journey, which started with limited resources in those days, were our boundless dreams. These dreams were not only Hayat's but also Turkey's dreams. As Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, said: 'It is not enough for a traveler walking on their path to only see the horizon; they must also see and know what lies beyond the horizon.' Today, we are key players on a global scale in many of the sectors we operate in. With 41 production facilities across 17 countries, we are bringing 49 brands born on this soil to millions of consumers worldwide. We rank 4th among the world's largest baby diaper manufacturers, and we are the largest cleaning paper producer in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Africa. In wood-based panel production with MDF and chipboard products, we are 3rd in Europe and 5th in the world. In addition to our entrepreneurial vision and courage, our national and spiritual sentiments have been our greatest source of motivation in achieving these global milestones.

Distinguished guests, in Hayat Holding's 85-year story, our country and the world have undergone transformative changes. We continue to experience similar challenges with increasingly shorter cycles. We must accept that we are facing a difficult test for the future of our world and the prosperity of future generations. We must now focus on stronger parameters beyond production and consumption. Those parameters are social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Today, we are approximately 8 billion people worldwide, and very soon we will be in an ecosystem serving the needs of more than 10 billion. In a world of dwindling resources, we will face rising cost pressures to meet this demand — and we have already begun to see the signs of this accelerating in the last three years. This situation leads us into a spiral of rising inflation and poverty. To manage a more crowded world with greater needs, we must prevent waste in resource utilization.

In line with this, as Hayat Holding, we have implemented many exemplary practices in our business processes and are rolling up our sleeves for more. In cleaning papers, we produce using four times less water than sector norms. We use 50% less groundwater and reduce wastewater volumes day by day. In our global production facilities, we have decided to take our energy efficiency one step further with a 'produce locally, consume locally' approach. In 2023, we will increase our share of renewable energy and commission solar and biomass power plants. Our target is to become a carbon-neutral company by 2037, marking our centennial. We define all our sustainability activities under the motto 'We look at life kindly.' For us, looking at life kindly means feeling a strong sense of responsibility for the world's shared future and the health and well-being of communities, reducing environmental impact in our business processes, and not depriving future generations of anything we possess. It is a reality that the most important starting point for a sustainable world is changing existing consumption habits for the better.

The ecological literacy education program called 'We Look at Life Kindly,' which you saw in the film just shown, was designed with this understanding. In collaboration with the Ministry of National Education, we aim to contribute to the early development of climate awareness among children through an education program aligned with the primary school curriculum. We want future generations to use the world and its resources more consciously than we did — we want them to look at life kindly.

Distinguished guests, global political and economic fluctuations continue to affect all our business processes, from raw material sourcing to logistics. In a period of such delicate balances, managing business processes based on efficiency principles is more important than ever. The opportunities offered by the digitalizing world are among the most powerful tools for achieving this efficiency. Digitalization reduces the gap between targets and actual outcomes in production, making our operations measurable. It opens up more opportunities for expanding into global markets and redefines business models. However, in a world of such high interconnectivity, sustainable economic growth requires financing to be equally fast and accessible. Access to finance at the micro level and broadening capital distribution have become among the most important issues of our time. As Hayat Holding, we are entering our new investment area — banking — with this perspective. We have established Hayat Finans Participation Bank, Turkey's first digital bank, which recently received its operational license. Hayat Finans will operate branch-free, serving exclusively through digital channels. With this model, where access to financial resources is easier and more affordable, we aspire to become one of the greatest supporters of micro-entrepreneurs who will shape the future.

Before I close, I ask God's mercy for our citizens who lost their lives in the earthquake disaster whose pain we still deeply feel, and patience for those who remain. We, as the business world, must unite our strengths to revive the 11 provinces that were brought to the brink of destruction, and produce long-term, permanent solutions for the region. Because 'One World, Shared Future' truly means, in its simplest sense, a union of destiny. Thank you for listening. Stay well.