Tell us about your organization and its journey to date.

Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters' Association (İKMİB) was established in 1991 as the leading representative of Turkish exporters in the chemicals and chemical products industry. The Association covers officially over 20,000 exporters in chemical industry on a national scale and around 8,000 of them are active members and export around the world. Our association renders service as being allied with the Secretariat General of Istanbul Mineral and Metals Exporters’ Association under the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM), as being ultimately affiliated to Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Trade.

As İKMİB, we carry out activities to sustain the professional ethics and cohesion of Turkish export companies in the chemicals industry, increase export levels, diversify export products and increase products' competitiveness. We also defend our members' rights and interests, help them form strong relations in the international arena and support them in getting into new markets.

Our association continues the organizational work in Türkiye with primary goals of being in close relationships with all the sub-sectors of the chemicals industry, following new developments and innovations in the sector closely and engaging new customers overseas.

Our vision is to direct and assist the Turkish chemicals and chemical products sector to become a leading country in the global chemicals trade. Our mission is to develop and implement strategies to increase the share of the Turkish chemicals and chemical products exporters in global markets and maintain a sustainable global competitive strength. Our values are quality, reliability, continuous improvement, and innovation.

How has the organization evolved to address the challenges of an ever-changing healthcare sector? Please list some accomplishments.

Conveniently located at the heart of three continents, Türkiye is the rising star of international wellness and health industry, with dynamic and skilled workforce, large investment, booming number of hospitals and medical institutions, and extensive healthcare services. Unsurprisingly, the medical product and pharmaceutical industries are both thriving and becoming impeccable suppliers of healthcare services provided to millions from all around the globe. Intensive R&D projects, cost benefits, and good logistics all contribute to Türkiye’s innovative strengths. Solid knowledge enables the best medical products and pharmaceuticals for the common good of mankind. Turkish Medicals has come into prominence in the worldwide market with high production capacity, product quality, and adaptability addition to advanced technology with knowhow and competitive prices for high quality. 

Pharmaceutical Industry of Türkiye has many years of experience in manufacturing, with international quality standards, empowering its position with the membership of PIC/S. We foresee that pharmaceutical exports will continue to grow in 2022 and will increase by more than 10 percent compared to the previous year. I was elected as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Elective General Assembly Meeting of İKMİB in April 2022. From the day I took office until today, together with my management team, colleagues and valuable members of our industry, we have succeeded in making our chemical industry the second largest exporting industry. 

In 2021, our chemical industry exports amounted to 25.40 billion dollars with an increase of 38.79 percent in value compared to 2020. In the January-December period of 2021, our pharmaceutical industry realized an export of 1.43 billion dollars with an increase of 19.41 percent in value compared to the same period of 2020.

Give us an insight into your portfolio and solutions targeted at the Middle East region.

Middle East market is one of the target markets of Türkiye in terms of medical, pharmaceutical and health tourism. When we look at it from this perspective, we have included in our calendar the activities to increase exports, especially fairs and trade delegations, for this market. On the other hand, we carry out studies on the basis of institutions in order to find solutions to trade barriers in exports.

Tell us about your recent and upcoming investments and partnerships in this field.

As İKMİB, our new target in the new period is to achieve the first place in our country's exports on a sectoral basis and to increase our export figure to over 50 billion dollars in 2030. We aim to establish a new chemistry ecosystem that opens up to the world from Türkiye with our strategic projects we have prepared with the motto of "Vision 2030". In this context, we are continuing our efforts to make the Chemical Technology Center, one of our most important projects that we believe will contribute greatly to the development of our industry, and which will be the first in Türkiye, to be operational by the end of next year.

What will you be showcasing at Arab Health 2023?

The organization of our country's national participation in the "Arab Health 2023 Fair", which will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates between 30 January – 2 February 2023, will be made by our Association. In 2022, under our national participation organization, +45 companies will participate in the Arab Health Fair, which is the largest event organized in the world in the health sector, while +100 companies will participate individually. At the fair, Turkish companies will exhibit products that are becoming increasingly important due to COVID-19, such as medical devices, products, consumables, hospital furniture, surgical equipment, orthopedic products, pharmaceuticals and software products.

Please tell us about your plans for the year 2023.

Apart from Arab Health, we will continue to take part in international fairs such as AEEDC and IDS. We aim to contribute to the export of our country by organizing international fair organizations and trade delegations in different parts of the world.

Anything else you would like to add?

We are waiting for all the participants of the fair to visit the Turkish National Participation Pavilion.