Year of Establishment: 1989
Founder Chairperson: Necati Akçağlılar
Chairperson representing Türkiye: Ebru Özdemir
Company: Limak İnşaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş.
Counterpart Organisation: Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales(CEOE) / España Exportación e Inversiones (ICEX)
Counterpart Chairperson: Carlos Torres Vila
Company: Chairman of the BBVA
The Establishment Agreement for the DEİK/Türkiye-Spain Business Council was signed on 15 September 1989 with CEOE, the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations, acting as Counterpart Organisation. On 13 October 2011, DEİK and CEOE signed another agreement to renew their cooperation and to appoint a Counterpart Chairman. The objectives were to ensure mutual and balanced economic and trade cooperation, to identify areas of cooperation, to study their feasibility, to find suitable local and foreign companies for joint ventures, to create the proper conditions for such ventures, to ensure the exchange of information, to identify obstacles and work on their removal, to promote economic, cultural, political and social ties in order to create a conducive environment for mutually beneficial and strong economic ties, and to encourage joint investments in third countries. In the initial phase, the main goal was to boost Turkish exports to Spain and to draw Spanish investments to Türkiye
In the second half of 1990, the need arose to internationalise the economic activities of SME. Consequently, the Council focussed more on organising events and offering services that target small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, the Council decided to expand its reach beyond Madrid to other industrial and trading centres in Spain; and it started to replace its traditional Joint Business Council Meetings with thematic meetings. In 1999 the Spanish Government declared Türkiye a country of particular interest and the two countries established a Joint Action Plan which provided a new impulse for the activities of the Türkiye-Spain Business Council.
Over time and under changing conditions and circumstances, the Council reoriented its focus of activities; its new goals became: the expansion of bilateral investments, stronger industrial and technological cooperation between Türkiye and Spain as well as in third countries, the intensification of cooperation in the sectors infrastructure, energy and services, joint participation in EU projects, and the organisation of promotional events in the areas of business, politics, academic-level education and learning, and with the press.
