Aegean Exporters' Associations (EIB) extends a helping hand to women entrepreneurs in the disaster area with the EIB Export-Up Mentoring Program. Aegean Exporters' Unions Coordinator President Jak Eskinazi emphasized that they have devoted all their work to healing the wounds of the earthquake since the morning of 6 February and said, "As Aegean Exporters' Associations, we obtained permission from our Ministry of Commerce to use our 6 million lira resource as in-kind aid in the first place. From the first moment until today, there is not a minute that we did not work for an earthquake. We need women who take the responsibility for the progress of our country, for polyphony, for democracy. We, as EIB, take a leading role in ensuring gender equality in Turkey. Because our main mission is to support sustainable development.” he said.
EIB, GAİB and EGİKAD join forces
President Eskinazi said, “Collective structures reaching hundreds of horizontally spread women entrepreneurs in our 11 provinces in the disaster area, micro-exporting abroad, working on institutionalized, geographically indicated products, producing sustainable and value-added products, holding international organic certificates, dealing with e-commerce and e-export. available. We want to get stronger and manage the process. Therefore, we will design the new period of our EIB Export-Up Mentorship Program, which is a role model for Turkey, in cooperation with the Southeastern Anatolian Exporters' Associations (GAİB) and the Aegean Business Women's Association (EGİKAD) for our 11 women entrepreneurs in 11 provinces whose commercial activities have been interrupted.” said.
Explaining that he mentored Gözde Support, one of the female representatives of the textile industry, for 6 months in the first period of the Export-Up Mentoring Project, Eskinazi said, “Our beneficiary has been producing the smart textile product group, which had not been produced in Turkey before, for two years as a result of R&D studies. During my mentorship, I contributed to the product development process by examining the sample samples of his company during the negotiations. In addition to our beneficiary's work on smart textiles, it will take an active role in the US market as a result of the approval of its applications for name registration in the USA in the upcoming period.” she said.
“Our Export-Up Mentoring Program has been writing success stories for three years”
Reminding that the Aegean Exporters' Associations signed the UN Global Compact, the world's largest sustainability initiative, for the first time among the Exporters' Associations in Turkey in 2019, President Eskinazi concluded his words as follows:
“As the first exporters' association to become a member of the Global Compact, we announced that we are a signatory to the Women's Empowerment Principles WEPs, a joint initiative of the Global Compact and UN Women, in 2022. One of the primary principles of Global Compact for about 5 years; We manage many processes related to gender equality and the empowerment of the female workforce. One of the most important of this process; Our Export-Up Mentoring Program, the first export-oriented mentoring program for women and young entrepreneurs in Turkey, has been writing success stories for three years. We are both one of the institutions with the highest female labor force representation in Turkey and one of the institutions with the highest female representation in the Board of Directors. All of our Board members take active roles in NGOs related to women's rights.”
Appreciating the Aegean Exporters' Associations' Export-Up Mentoring Project for the support provided to entrepreneurial earthquake survivors, Southeast Anatolia Exporters' Associations Coordinator President Fikret Kileci said, “The Aegean Exporters' Associations have given us strength and hope with their support since the first day of the earthquake. They made an extra effort while exhibiting the best example of women's solidarity, especially for entrepreneur women operating in our region. Action was taken to work within the scope of the Export-Up Mentorship project in order to support the women business owners who suffered material and moral damage due to the earthquake in the region.” he said.
Kileci stated that they have witnessed many successful works and benefits with the project so far and said, “We hope to see the same positive effects for entrepreneur women who have had a hard time due to the earthquake. I would like to express my gratitude to Jak Eskinazi, the President of the Aegean Exporters Union, who did not remain indifferent to the developments in the region and made the entrepreneur women in our region feel that they are not alone with this meaningful solidarity project, and all his teammates who contributed, and I wish the Export-Up Mentorship project to be beneficial for our women in the earthquake region.” said.
Application deadline is April 14
Seray Seyfeli, Vice President of Aegean Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters' Association, said:
“Betül Buzludağ Aydemir, our beneficiary, whom I mentored for 6 months in the first term, left corporate life and started to sprout her initiative on textile and promotional products in 2015. Thanks to Export-Up, it has started to produce the products of many national and international companies in Turkey and to receive orders from the international subsidiaries of these companies. In the new phase of our Export-Up Program, representatives of the Izmir business world will offer mentorship services to 11 women entrepreneurs in the earthquake zone to return them to export with training, consultancy and experience sharing. Beneficiary-mentor pairings will take place in line with the fields of activity and needs of our women entrepreneurs. We will complete our application process on April 14, 2023.”
“We want an era where women are empowered”
Seyfeli said, “While Turkey signed an export of 2022 billion dollars in 254, our provinces in the earthquake zone, which is the important production and export base of the country, increased their exports from 2022 billion dollars to 4 billion dollars in 19,6 with an increase of 20,5%. After the earthquake, exports of 11 provinces decreased from 42 billion 1 million dollars to 707 million dollars with a decrease of 985 percent in February, and decreased by 20 percent from 1 billion 997 million dollars to 1 billion 590 million dollars in March. Our women in the earthquake zone have been working on the field day and night on the front line since February 6, and they are trying to continue their commercial activities with great difficulty. We want an era where women are empowered.” he said.
Two International European Union projects for women from EGİKAD
Şahika Aşkıner, President of Aegean Business Women's Association (EGİKAD) and Member of the Audit Board of Aegean Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters' Association, said, “As EGİKAD, we are carrying out two International European Union projects for women. Our international 'Mira-Creative Women in Labor Market' project, carried out jointly with Izmir University of Economics by EGIKAD, the first of which is the coordinator of the Izmir Governor's Office, has been going on for two years with our partners from Portugal, England and Romania. it does.” she said.
Stating that they organized many pilot trainings with the Mira project, Aşkıner said, “We gave trainings to entrepreneurs from England, Portugal and Romania, as well as to all entrepreneurs who participated in the project from Turkey, at İzmir University of Economics. Our other project, our DAS (Digital Age Skills) Project, which is coordinated by EGİKAD, continues successfully with our partners from Lithuania, Greece, Bulgaria and Spain, which we carry out for women at home to learn more about digitalization and acquire digital skills.” she said.
Aşkıner said, “As Aegean women, we are proud to reach more women entrepreneurs every year and to increase the number of women entrepreneurs we support. Among our EGİKAD members, we have exporter women members with years of experience, mainly in ready-to-wear. As a business person with 30 years of export history, who has been working in many fields, including the Foreign Market Strategies Development Committee in the EIB, as well as as the Vice President of the Izmir Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I have wanted to start exporting since the first day I was elected as the President of EGIKAD. I was planning a project to start our women entrepreneurs for export, to develop their contacts abroad, to introduce them to business women's associations from different countries and to enable them to make B2Bs. I am ready to reflect all my experience and communication network to our EIB Export-Up Mentorship project and to do everything I can for our women entrepreneurs in the earthquake zone.” he said.
9 percent contribution to the country's exports
When the exports of 9 provinces, which had a share of 11 percent in Turkey's exports and caused great destruction, are analyzed on the basis of sectors, cereals, pulses, oilseeds are at the top with an export of 3 billion 490 million dollars.
The textile industry, which became the export champion by bringing 2021 billion 3 million dollars of foreign currency to Turkey in 363, became the top partner sector with exports with its 2022 billion 3 million dollars performance in 325.
The steel industry followed these two sectors with an export of 2 billion 792 million dollars. While the chemical industry was exporting 2 billion 180 million dollars, the carpet industry brought in 1 billion 910 million dollars of foreign currency to Turkey. Fresh fruit, vegetable and fruit and vegetable products sectors were among the sectors that passed the 1 billion dollars threshold with 107 billion 1 million dollars. The furniture sector followed these sectors with an export of 926 million dollars.