Honorary Consul ’Go West, go West young man’

Aykut Eken is the honorary consul for Jamaica and has been for the past nine years, while his wife Gönül is the honorary consul for St. Kitts and Nevis. He believes in the importance of countries getting to know each other socially and culturally prior to trade. Similarly it is essential to become acquainted with existing resources, dynamics and needs. Tourism also helps a lot and where investments are concerned information and communications are critical.

As there are more than 30 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, it isn’t economically feasible for Turkey to have a fully staffed embassy in each one any more than it has been for many of these countries to maintain one in Turkey. That’s where honorary consuls and consulates fill a gap in encouraging contacts.

This is the essence of what Eken believes is the correct approach to improving relations between countries. It also helps when a country’s president such as Lula de Silva comes to visit accompanied by a high-level group of businessmen who are eager to meet their counterparts in Turkey.

First agreement

The first ever agreement between Turkey and Brazil was signed in 1858 and dealt with residence, trade and commercial navigation and officially went into effect on May 20, 1858, 151 years this past week. A few months later Prince Adlir of Brazil visited the Ottoman Empire. Relations more or less languished until 1995 when Turkish President Süleyman Demirel visited Brazil, Argentina and Chile and an action plan was initiated to improve bilateral relations.

Aykut Eken has had an important role to play in improving these relations. For instance he set up a Caribbean and Latin American Trade Organization. It revolves around a library in Mecidiyeköy and an accumulation of knowledge available to foreign embassies, honorary consulates and companies that conduct trade with the approximately 33 countries in that area. It serves as a focal point for the exchange of information and as a means of promoting Turkey in the Americas.

Eken can readily point out that the recent introduction of direct flights between Istanbul and Sao Paolo, Brazil, will make it much easier to go back and forth. Moreover sports-minded Turks are well aware of the athletic abilities of Brazilian footballers and many can be expected to crop up in Turkish teams in the future.

Other possibilities, according to Eken, include building the partnership between TPAO and PETROBRAS in oil exploration. [At the very same time that Brazilians and Turks were exploring business opportunities, Petrobras officials were visiting the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The CEO of Petrobras and the US ambassador to Brazil had been present with a "Person of the Year" award by the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. They were allowed to bring the bell that signals trading on the floor of the NYSE.]

A similar plan is afoot for TAI, Turkey’s leading aircraft manufacturer, and Brazil’s Embraer, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial and executive jets. There the goal is to cooperate on aerospace projects of mutual benefit. Eken has suggested in the past that a very good place to set up business with Latin American countries is Miami because of its proximity to these places and has a large population of Spanish speakers. He has also described it as an ideal place to serve as a base and to solve difficulties. Another suggestion on his part has been Panama because logistically it serves the north and south of the Americas as well as the northeast islands in the Caribbean Sea.

If the Turks have a major problem, it concerns language. Brazilians speak Portuguese while all of the other countries speak Spanish. But it’s possible to get around this issue since the language of business worldwide is English.

So if it’s not Brazil, there’s always Columbia, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Venezuela. The Turkish government has been behind Eken’s efforts to improve relations although there have been earlier efforts such as groups led by the late Turkish President Turgut Özal and Nuh Kuşçulu, the president of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce.

While the advice to go west may have been proven to be a good way to go, it hasn’t stopped Eken from considering the possibilities that China offered. From what he has said the first attempts from 1985 were pretty scary for Turkish businessmen and of course the businessmen’s committees that went there on junkets probably felt the same. Exorbitant amounts were being asked for far from proven business possibilities. There were many problems and few solutions in sight. Foreign companies that were there were thinking of leaving and not returning. But times have changed. Today China is a very different place where foreign businesses are welcomed and protected under the law although exactly what will happen given the world economic crisis no one knows. Eken of course went back but the real focus of his business is Latin America.

Eken as Eken

Eken officially says that his hobbies include reading, traveling, searching for new technologies and business initiatives and antiques. They are very similar to those of his wife Gonul who is president of Orris Kimya Tic. Ve San. A.S., a home textile company in Turkey. She talks of him as if he were born to be an honorary consul and finds their house seeming like an extension of Turkey’s Foreign Ministry.

According to Gönül Hanim, he is generous without expecting to even see some people again, very social and loves to give parties. So the fact that she’s a good cook really comes in handy. He loves eating and drinking and turns a meal into a feast. He usually doesn’t forget the people he meets and likes to help people in need.

Eken has an aversion to computers but can do any calculations he needs to in his head. He’s particularly good at mathematics and physics which is probably why he chose to study architecture. It would seem to be a natural for him.

Obviously from his business interests, he loves traveling and his wife says he can be expected to be planning the next trip even as he is returning from the first. He’s just comfortable wherever he is but is very good at discovering new areas to explore and finding new products and new businesses to get involved in. He’s very curious and loves to bargain. And very interestingly he tends to forget whether the person opposite him s a man or a woman. It’s of no importance to him.

The couple is looking forward to yet another exciting meeting and that is the ninth world congress of the World Federation of Consuls that will be held November 14-15 in Izmir. Aykut Eken is the treasurer of the Federation and has even been so generous as to put an office in Brussels at the disposal of the organization. Many top level diplomats are expected to attend.

AYKUT EREN, HONORARY  CONSUL FOR JAMAICA

The 62-year-old Mehmet Aykut Eken was born in Istanbul. Between 1979 and 1999 Mehmet Aykut Eken was the Turkish representative for the Cockerill Sambre Belgian Iron and Steel Group. In 1979 as well he founded Beta International S.A. with its headquarters in Brussels. He still serves as CEO of the company that is involved in stainless steel, tourism, textiles and yachting. In 1985, Eken set up Beta Worldwide USA with offices in the U.S., Belgium and Turkey.

From 1990 Eken has been the CEO of the Kontuar Tourism Travel Agency and from 2000 he has been the honorary consul for Jamaica and Turkey’s representative to the World Honorary Consuls Federation. Eken is the chairman of the Foreign Economic Relations Board’s Turkish-Brazilian Council and vice chairman of the Turkish-Mexican and Turkish-Belgian Councils. He was granted the Brevet of "Officier de l’Ordre de la Couronne" by His Majesty King Albert II of Belgium in 2004.