http://www.serhansuzer.com/2016/04/14/2009-turkiye-kosta-rika-iliskilerinde-donum-yili/#more-1894
First and foremost, I must emphasize that being Honorary Consul of Costa Rica is a public duty for me. Like all public positions, I view being an honorary consul as a relay race. I took over the baton from the previous honorary consul, Ender Kitapçı. I plan to pass it on to someone who deserves it. I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of those who wants to carry on as honorary consul for the rest of their lives just for the sake of it, holding on to this position for 20-30 years. For me, service to the country is paramount. What matters is not the number of years of service, but what you accomplish during your time in office.
Knowing this, as Honorary Consul of Costa Rica, as in all my other work, I’ve always been goal oriented. I first set my goals, and I’ve accomplished a significant majority of them, one by one.
Our most recent goal was to establish the Türkiye branch office of the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Agency. After years of striving for its establishment, both Costa Rica and Türkiye opened reciprocal embassies in 2014. Our next goal was to develop trade relations. To this end, we acted last year to establish the Turkish office of the Foreign Trade Agency, and we finally opened it last week.
Let me share the story of this with you. The PAC (Partido Acción Ciudadana – Citizens’ Action Party), led by Luis Guillermo Solís, surprisingly won the 2014 elections. Following the change of government, as in many countries, key positions were reshuffled and appointments made in Costa Rica.
The logo of Costa Rica’s ruling party, the PAC.
President Luis Guillermo Solís.
Alexander Mora has been appointed Minister of Foreign Trade. Minister Mora is an open-minded minister with a business-like approach. He comes from the private sector and is also an entrepreneur with experience in areas such as banking, trade, telecommunications, and digital technology. As Minister of Foreign Trade, he is responsible for Costa Rica’s foreign trade and investments. He also represents Costa Rica in multinational organizations such as the WTO, OECD, and SIECA.
After taking office, Minister Mora appointed Pedro Beirute Prada to head Procomer, the Foreign Trade Agency. Pedro also comes from the private sector. After working in various positions at Intel for 17 years, he was appointed General Manager of Procomer.
After taking office, Pedro came to Istanbul to develop trade relations between Costa Rica and Türkiye. After a busy marathon of meetings, we met for drinks sometime that evening. He told me that Türkiye had tremendous potential and that Procomer wanted to open an office. I asked him how I could help. He told me that they wanted to open this office quickly and that they were considering a different approach to move quickly, including through a Turkish company. He added that they could have their own employees work on the payroll of a trusted company and quickly secure approval through consulting.
Ultimately, they decided to proceed with this approach. Therefore, they also requested a proposal from my company. I sent them a proposal that covered only the costs, without any profit margin. The goal wasn’t to profit from these transactions; what mattered was to serve this country. Since my offer was the lowest, it was accepted, and we signed the contract. They also asked me to identify candidates to manage the Procomer Türkiye office.
A surprise candidate at the last minute
About a month later, Procomer Regional Director and close friend Edgar Sanchez came to Istanbul to interview with me. Frankly, none of the five interviews we conducted were entirely satisfactory. All of them had some sort of weakness. Some spoke inadequate Spanish, others in Turkish. We also had foreign candidates amongst them. Some had no private sector experience, or conversely, had founded and run their own companies, and were saying they couldn’t close them.
As Edgar and I discussed how we wouldn’t be able to complete the interviews that week and that we needed more time to find the right candidate, and as we were assessing the situation, my assistant at the consulate, Ninoska, walked in smiling and said, “I have another candidate for you.” I told her, “Today is our last day; let’s schedule the interview as soon as possible.” Ultimately, we were able to interview the same day because the candidate Ninoska had mentioned was Ali Natour, who worked at the Argentinian consulate in the same building. Ali, who performed every job at the consulate, from consul interpreter to wild card, had been exposed when his consul was transferred to another location. He was a perfect fit for us. Being from a Turkish family living in Argentina, he not only had excellent command of Spanish and Turkish but also had a good character and was a decent companion. Although he wasn’t very experienced in the private sector, his experience in this field was a real asset. The interview took place, and after leaving, Edgar and I made eye contact, and we said simultaneously, “This is it.”
After reaching an agreement with Ali, he informed the Argentinian Consulate of his situation, while we also notified Costa Rica that we had chosen our candidate. Ali officially began working in May. However, the official opening we had planned to hold that month with President Solis in Istanbul for the United Nations meeting had to be postponed because he cancelled his participation in the UN meeting.
A Pleasure at the June Opening
In late May, while I was on my way from Ankara to Niğde to lay the groundwork for the factory we were building to produce wafers, cells, and modules, the heart of solar panels, Minister Mora called. He asked my opinion on the opening date. I told him that we shouldn’t postpone the opening until July; it could happen in June. If he couldn’t make it before Ramadan, a weekday iftar dinner might be a good idea. We then confirmed that we would open Procomer on June 17th, just after he was in Europe. We opened the Procomer Türkiye office among ourselves at 4:00 PM on 17 June.
A frame from the opening.
Minister Mora gave a wonderful dinner speech at 8:00 PM. By the time the speech ended, it was time for iftar. After the guests had broken their fast, we showed the ‘Essential Costa Rica’ video, linked below.
Minister Mora giving a speech at the iftar dinner we held after the opening.
A photo taken during the iftar dinner.
Essential Costa Rica Video
We concluded the evening, attended by approximately 40 distinguished guests, with warm wishes of goodwill. A group of guests went to the hotel terrace to watch the Spain-Türkiye match. Since I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic about the match, I left after dinner to meet with friends. Thanks to the great efforts of Ninoska, who worked with me at our honorary consulate, and Ali, who had just started working at Procomer, we successfully completed this event. I, too, had a very enjoyable evening, filled with the satisfaction of having accomplished another successful event and the launch of the Procomer Istanbul office. I believe the Procomer office will be very beneficial in increasing trade between the two countries.
Last month, another positive event took place that will directly impact trade and tourism. You may have heard that Turkish Airlines launched direct flights to Panama last May. By direct flight, I mean the flight first lands in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and then passengers would continue to Panama City without disembarking. The distance between Panama City and San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, is 50 minutes, like an Istanbul-Ankara flight. We worked hard to achieve this important goal, and we achieved results. From now on, businesspeople will be able to travel to those regions more easily. I expect this to have a positive impact on business volume.
What do I plan to do next? Let me tell you right away: I plan to hand over the Honorary Consulate of Costa Rica in 2018. This is because I will have completed my 10th year as Honorary Consul in 2018. As I mentioned before, public office must be for a fixed term. This should cover a maximum of two terms, meaning 10 years, or, in cases of force majeure, three terms, totaling 15 years and should be no longer than that. Given the current circumstances, since there are no force majeure circumstances, I believe it’s time to leave this position. Until then, I will focus on what I intend to achieve. I have two important goals remaining. The first of these is to ensure that a prominent artist holds an exhibition in Türkiye. A special exhibition and important trade agreements
I’m proud to announce that we will be holding an exhibition of the esteemed Costa Rican sculptor Jose Sancho at the Pera Museum between 30 May – 30 August, 2017. I’d like to thank Pera Museum General Manager Mr. Özalp Birol and the entire Pera Museum staff for their support in this regard. We hope to organize a wonderful exhibition reflecting Costa Rica’s Pura Vida culture. I will share the details with you after the exhibition is completed.
After achieving our goal of initiating Turkish Airlines’ flights to Central America, our final step, which will positively impact trade relations, will be the signing of relevant agreements between the two countries. The Free Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Agreements, and Investment Protection Agreements will facilitate bilateral business and increase business volume. We will do everything in our power to secure the signing of these agreements. This is not an easy task, as bureaucracy in both countries can sometimes be crippling. However, I’m not hopeless. We’ll do our best until 2018.
I can almost hear you asking, “What will you do after you retire?” Perhaps I’ll even expand my business there. For instance, Costa Rica is a great place for solar and wind energy investments.
And now I’ll finally enjoy Costa Rica. I’ve always traveled to Costa Rica for honorary consular duties and have only been able to enjoy this beautiful country for two days at most. It usually falls on a weekend. However, this New Year’s Eve, I’m planning to go to Costa Rica for at least a week, just for a vacation with someone special and my dear friends. I’ll be organizing the trip myself, and I’m sure it will be a very enjoyable vacation. As you can imagine, I’ve built a very wide network of friends in Costa Rica and Latin America, and most importantly, I know exactly what it takes to have a wonderful vacation.
Pura Vida!
Tag: honorary consulate
