A meeting was held between Dünya Newspaper and Ostim Organized Industrial Zone on the theme of "Ostim projects and the production philosophy of the OSB management".
The meeting, held in the Ostim Board of Directors meeting room, was attended by Dünya Newspaper's veteran columnist Dr. Rüştü Bozkurt, Editor-in-Chief Hakan Güldağ, Ankara Representative Ferit Parlak, Ankara News Manager Hüseyin Gökçe, and reporters Meltem Gündüz and Özüm Örs. During the meeting, presentations and speeches were given on Ostim's structure and institutions, clustering efforts, and Ostim's philosophical sources for production and regional development.
In his introductory remarks before the consultation, Ostim Chairman Orhan Aydın stated, “We have a long history of cooperation and partnership with Dünya Newspaper. Dünya Newspaper's perspective on the economy, production, and industry aligns with ours. We thank them for this approach and their continued support.”
Aydın touched upon issues such as the importance of offset applications in the context of localizing production in development, the need for a change in the public procurement and supply approach, and the removal of obstacles to production by the public sector and bureaucracy.
Aydın stated, “We have the potential to design, produce, and export many materials such as regional aircraft, rail transport vehicles, power plants, wind turbines, engines, and defense industry needs. But we need to come together with a common goal. For this, we, as Ostim, have created sectoral clusters as a result of competitive analysis. Here, we bring together manufacturers, universities, the public sector, and other actors. We want other regions to adopt the projects we have undertaken in a modular way. We are doing these things so that Ostim develops, Ankara prospers, and our country develops.”
"We should ride horse-drawn carriages, we don't deserve the subway."
Aydın illustrated the obstacles to domestic production in our country with a striking example: “Our rivers flow, our coal lies dormant, our winds blow, and we have no chance of generating electricity by putting anything in front of them. If you want to burn coal and convert it into energy, you'll have to go to a foreigner and ask them to build a thermal power plant for you. Your rivers are flowing, and if you want to produce energy from them, you'll have to apply to a foreigner again. This is not a sustainable practice. Another example is rail transport, the metro. Do all our cities need metros? Yes, they do. Why can't we build them ourselves? We tell the government, ‘We can build our own metro.’ The university says, ‘I can design it,’ the industry says, ‘I can produce it,’ the municipality says, ‘I need it,’ but when we say, ‘Let's build it ourselves and ride it ourselves,’ we get stuck. They say, ‘There's a tender law, have you done this before? Is your metro working anywhere?’ No! By putting these obstacles in my way, you are turning our country into a buyer. Then, we need our own metro..." Where does our right to ride the metro come from? Why do we ride the subway but not horse-drawn carriages? We should be riding horse-drawn carriages because we don't deserve to ride the subway. You have people who produce, people who design, and you have the need, and yet you can't build and ride the subway, and you tell a foreigner, "Come and build a subway, I'll ride it and enjoy it." We can't get to a point like that.”
Following the meeting, author Rüştü Bozkurt was presented with a plaque of appreciation featuring excerpts from a speech he gave in Ostim in 1993. Similarly, Ankara Representative Ferit Parlak received a plaque of appreciation for his article about the accident that occurred in the Ostim workplaces. General Editor Hakan Güldağ was also presented with a gift to commemorate the visit, and the meeting concluded with a group family photograph.
