The success stories of Turkey’s fast growth companies must be heard by the world.

Turkey is still an introverted country. From an objective point of view, I think that Turkey looks like an introverted adolescent. Think about it: The people of Turkey learned that opening up to the world brings prosperity in the 1980s. Export figures have grown rapidly since then. Turkey was a sleepy agricultural country before the 1980s. It has now become a dynamic, mid-tech industrial country. But I don’t think that Turkey is open enough. This is partly because we overestimate ourselves and our problems. Since we always get above ourselves, we are not able to empathize with the world's problems. We do not care if the world burns to the ground.

Another appearance of this phenomenon concerning the business world is that we are quietly waiting to be discovered. We do not drive forward and praise individual success. We think that it is odd to praise ourselves. We wait for someone else to come and praise us instead. But let me tell you, don’t hold your breath! The same is true for Turkey’s foreign investment attraction strategy if you ask me. We brag about our impressive growth performance, solid stability, and strong domestic market, but we do not tell concrete success stories about Turkish companies and their successes. We were not, actually. The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey currently has undertaken this role. Last year, the 25 fastest-growing companies of Turkey were selected. Today, the fastest 100 will be identified.

Why? To compile information, to begin with.  The company names you first think of have not changed over the last four decades. But the founders of today’s giants have success stories and myths. Many of them started with a small, local grocery. In today’s rapidly changing world, Turkey needs new success stories. It has the success; it has fast-growth companies. What it lacks is myths and stories about successful companies. The success stories of Turkey’s fast growth companies must be heard by the world. I highly regard the Turkey 100 project from this perspective.

The Turkey 100 companies are selected by a simple criterion. Companies are ranked by the average growth of their revenue stream between 2010 and 2012. One of the key components of the project is to join listed companies with potential American partners. The companies are first offered a training program at Harvard University. There they also find the chance to share their success stories. In his Harvard speech, Yavuz Eroğlu, the CEO of an AllWorld Turkey 25 company Sem Plastics, told how he had created a brand out of a small family workshop. I recommend that you watch his speech on Youtube. Fast-growth companies later meet with potential partners during a series of events in Washington and New York.

Looking at the similar projects AllWorld has been carrying out in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, I believe that Turkey has more fast-growth countries than they have. But the introversion of Turkey remains intact. I was checking the number of US visas per 100,000 people the other day. The figures are 1800 in Israel, 1100 in UAE, 500 in Brazil, 302 in Jordan and 185 in South Korea. It is 118 in Turkey. True, it is higher than Egypt’s 70, but lower than many others. Given that the figure includes students and tourists, I found the figure quite small. Turkey has to reopen to the world, if you ask me.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 26.04.2013