IFA Consumer Elecronics and White Goods Trade Show, held in Berlin between the dates of September 5-10, 2014, drew considerable attention this year just like the previous ones.

During the trade show, 1538 companies displayed their new products at an area of 150 thousand square meters. The appealing booths of domestic white goods manufacturers made us particularly proud. Smart phones and tablet computers, TVs with 4K resolution and curved TVs, “smart home” systems, vacuum cleaners with many features, smart coffee machines and cutting-edge white goods displayed at the booths attracted quite a lot of attention.

As BEYSAD, we participated in the trade show as visitors this year with the Production Development Team TURKHAS which has been created within the context of the İMMİB-TET cooperation. 17 representatives from 12 companies as well as the Specialist Yeliz Torun from Economy Ministry’s General Directorate of Exports, TET Project managers and Ayşegül Koç of BEYSAD took part in the fair under the leadership of TET Vice Chairman Güven Uçkan and TURKHAS Team’s Executive Board members Atilla Eren and Besim Oktayer. Apart from the Production Development Team, we had the opportunity to meet with BEYSAD’s Vice Chairman of the Board Burak Özaydemir and Board Member Tolga Ballık as well as Hakan Altınkeser from the BEYSAD-member company of Farel, and Murat Çam from Teleset company. As it was told, the heart of technology and our industry was beating there.

TURKHAS Team took part in the trade show between 7 and 10 September. On the first day, visits to company booths were emphasized. First, Arçelik executives Alp Karahasanoğlu and Fikri Özdemir took the group for a tour of Beko and Grundig booths. We are grateful to them for their excellent hospitality.

On the second and third days, team-member companies also found the opportunity to conduct their meetings in addition to booth visits. On this second day, executives of Vestel and Bosch hosted our group members at their booths and we had the opportunity to listen about their newest technologies directly from them. In this regard, we extend our gratitude to the Vestel family through Vestel’s Purchasing Director Kemal Özgür and to the BSH family through BSH’s Washers Group Global Purchasing Director Axel Fischer for the close attention they showed to us.

Vestel and Beko as well as many other firms from Turkey particularly from the home appliances sector participated in the trade show. Termikel, Kumtel, Atmaca, Silverline are just a few of these…

We believe it was a beneficial trade fair; as BEYSAD, we started discussing the advantages of participating in this event with a booth.

The last day of the visit was allocated to official discussions. First, we paid a visit to Trade Counsellor Kaan Sürmeli to talk about the continuity of Production Development projects as well as the pros and cons of clustering efforts.

Afterwards, we visited Turkey’s Ambassador to Berlin H. Avni Karslıoğlu to discuss what can be done to take our cluster one step further and how to focus on the products imported by Germany but not manufactured by Turkey.

Finally, we visited Turkish-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry; a brief presentation was made for our team after being greeted by the Chamber’s Board Member Bahattin Kaya. We talked about the Turkish companies operating in Germany and the potential trade opportunities in Germany.