Business

The seventh annual Horasis Global Meeting kicked off today in style 

In the historic city of Gaziantep today more than 400 delegates, including Ministers and business leaders, gathered for the first day of Horasis Global Meeting to discuss key global issues centered around sustainability, international relations and economic development.

The introductory sessions focused on reconstruction, with impactful data points shared by delegates. 

Former Deputy Prime Minister of Albania Senida Mesi noted that “high income countries constitute less than 16% of the world population, but receive over 50% of global investment spending,” when setting the context for increasing global distortions. 

The grand opening saw passionate and dynamic speeches from Horasis Chairman Dr. Frank Jürgen-Richter, Mayor of Gaziantep Fatma Şahin, Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat and Gaziantep Governor Kemal Çeber.

Midmorning brought about the first plenary discussions and exciting panels around fostering collaboration between nations to make countries more resilient collectively.

“Countries will need to move beyond self interest and look to their neighbours for sustained economic growth” said Business Standard Contributing Editor Pranjal Sharma, who chaired a session on the world economic outlook. 

To close the morning, Türkiye’s Minister of Finance Mehmet Şimşek gave an extensive overview of Türkiye’s current economic outlook and why international investors should look to the country as an exciting opportunity.

The afternoon sessions centered around fostering positive individual and collective change, leadership, impact-focused technology.

Havard Business School Professor John Quelch chaired an inspiring debate on the changing meaning of public goods, with award-winning journalist Jennifer Nadel citing that we should now see “truth as a public good”.

The closing plenary changed formats to a roundtable-style debate on social capital with a panel of disparate beliefs and experiences, with great accounts from the former Minister of Foreign Investment in North Macedonia, Gligor Tashkovich, and Deputy President of the African Academy of Sciences, Nkem Khumbah. 

With the meeting held by the city of Gaziantep, after England’s Liverpool and Portugal’s Cascais, more attention will be drawn to the region that has suffered one of the largest natural disasters, and commercial foundations can be further strengthened.

The meeting will likely help ensure Gaziantep is the preferred city for the regional offices of multinational companies, and can be shown as a center for global enterprises.

This article includes a partner of an Espacio portfolio company

Fraser Gillies

Recent Posts

DARPA O-Circuit program wants drones that can smell danger with ‘a new class of biologically inspired computer’

DARPA's O-Circuit program looks to build a new class of biologically inspired computer equipped with…

1 day ago

How a ten-day bootcamp is helping students at Delhi Public School hone their AI skills 

As AI races into classrooms worldwide, Google is finding that the toughest lessons on how…

1 day ago

WEF promotes eat the bugs agenda in ‘new nature economy’ report

The push to eat bugs is not an organic movement coming from the people, but…

2 days ago

Africa’s Digital Assets Push Gets an Upgrade as ADAS Teams-Up With CEO’s Forum

As Africa’s digital economy accelerates, a new partnership between the Africa Digital Assets Summit 2026…

3 days ago

Why companies can’t afford black-box AI anymore

The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report from Menlo Ventures found that companies…

3 days ago

From one donor, thousands of doses: Meet the startup making cell therapy accessible

Living therapies, made of engineered immune cells – and capable of hunting down cancer, reversing…

3 days ago