Omnitele had an opportunity to participate in Team Finland visit to Türkiye as part of the ministerial visit of Finnish Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari in early June. The business delegation had 19 Finnish high-tech companies from various industries such telecom, energy, steel, transport, and construction.

The aim of Minister Ville Skinnari’s visit was to further strengthen the trade relations and to promote cooperation between the two countries especially in the fields of digitalisation and the green transition.

In the meeting with Minister of Science, Industry and Technology, Mustafa Varank, it was emphasized how important digitalization is for Türkiye and how Turkish companies are keen to collaborate with Finnish companies. The minister also mentioned the importance of the telecom infrastructure and how Turkish technology companies have been focusing on 5Gdevelopment.

‍

5G and digitalization were also in focus when meeting with HTK -Communications Technologies Cluster team in Ankara. HTK was founded in 2017 with the target to produce all the components of an end-to-end 5G network. Currently HTK has 156 member companies developing different components of 5G and working with local operators. For foreign telecom companies HTK companies offer great partnership opportunities and support for entering Turkish market. We had an opportunity to meet several of these HTK member companies in Istanbul during the business forum round table.

In the meeting with Vice Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Dr Ömer Fatih Sayan,Turkish digitalization plans were further discussed as the 5G auction will beheld in the end of 2022.

‍

‍

In Istanbul Finland – Türkiye business seminar was organized by Business Finland and Embassy of Finland. The seminar had a lively panel discussion about digitalization and green transition with Minister Skinnari, Marika Ollaranta, Head of Decarbonizing Industries, Business Finland; Halil Kulluk, Chair, DEIK Türkiye-Finland Business Council; Serkan Valandova, Secretary General, YASED; and Ahmet Saygin Baban, Head of Industry Councils and Entrepreneurship Department, TOBB.

‍

‍

During thevisit the first ever Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) protocol wassigned by Turkish Minister of Trade, Mehmet Muş and Minister Skinnari. This wasfollowed by a business roundtable meeting attended by Finnish and Turkishcompanies and organizations where green energy, green deal and growth ofdigital economy was discussed with the joint target to increase the tradevolume between Finland and Türkiye.

‍

‍

On our last day we visited WIN EURASIA 5G Arena where we had an opportunity to see various local 5G innovations and use case demos. 5G network for the arena was sponsored by Nokia and Vodafone Turkey.

As Türkiye is about to embark on their 5G journey Omnitele is more than happy to  collaborate with the local companies on this journey.

‍