TÜSİAD, the Turkish Industry and Business Association, is Turkey's top business organization. Founded in 1971, TÜSİAD is a voluntary, independent, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting public welfare through private enterprise. TÜSİAD promotes principles of participatory democracy, a competitive market economy, environmental sustainability, and universal freedoms and human rights. The Association supports independent research and policy discussions on important social and economic issues in Turkey and abroad. TÜSİAD is composed of CEOs and executives from major industrial and services companies in Turkey, including Fortune 500 companies. The current Chairman is Simone Kaslowski and the Secretary-General is Bahadir Kaleagasi.
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TÜSİAD represents more than 4,000 member companies which represent half of the Turkey's value-added; 80% of Turkey’s total foreign trade volume; more than 50% of private sector employment; and 80% of corporate tax revenue.
TÜSIAD is considered Turkey's secular, pro-Westernization business organization. In the early 2000s, TÜSIAD coordinated heavily with the newly elected AKP majority, with the shared aim of joining the European Union. TÜSIAD is also credited with laying the groundwork for Turkish support for the Annan Plan on Cyprus. However, as the EU accession process began to deteriorate in 2006, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's administration reversed course away from the EU, driving a wedge between the two. Since then, TÜSIAD has embarked on a project of public diplomacy, opening representative offices in European capitals and Washington, D.C. to engage and collaborate with relevant actors in the private sector and general public. In June 2016, TÜSİAD released a statement criticizing a proposed law which would enhance the government’s authority to appoint boards of trustees to companies. The controversial article was later removed from the law. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized TÜSİAD on multiple occasions. In April 2015, Erdoğan was critical of comments made about the Turkish economy. In December 2014, Erdoğan criticized the organization for apparently side-stepping his office after then TÜSİAD President Haluk Dinçer explained the organization works with the prime minister and ministers whose business is related to the organization’s efforts, not the president. Though occasionally at odds politically with the ruling AKP, they are a united front on economic matters; immediately following the July 15th 2016 coup attempt TÜSIAD took out ads in major world newspapers and held high level meetings with American and European think tanks, NGOs, and government officials in tandem with Turkish government officials in order to brandish Turkey's image abroad and reassure investors of Turkey's economic and political health.
