JON FREDRIK BAKSAAS

CEO, Telenor

Dear Prime minister, dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being able to answer this fantastic question, it is a question really stretching out into the future and who would know what the glass bowl would hide in that time perspective. 2023 is really looking forward but I must say that by trying to look into the future there is something to learn what is going on right now and even though Mr. Berkin has difficult times with his mobile phone, I am pretty sure that you didn’t have it 18 years ago and in 18 years mobile phone in a way has developed into our daily life in fantastic way and I think this kind of development might even continue but there are some trends and some characteristics that we can learn from and let me highlight little bit of them.

Turkey has a goal of becoming knowledge based economy, I think this is about to happen the way the mobile phones, the way the internet, the way information and knowledge is being distributed to all people basically and we in Telenor we do see these experiences taking place in all the countries in which we are doing mobile operations which now counts for 12 countries. We are working in environment with more then 600 million people, we have 60 million people in our systems and there are significant developments in all these societies and they rank from a fully penetrated environment in the Nordic countries up to low penetration rates in the developing economies in Asia so we are representing both in sort of the advance countries having had mobile communications for 15 years becoming a natural way of living compared to what’s happening in countries which do not have the same distribution of fix-line communication services as we have in Western Europe and as we have in Nordics for that matter. Here mobile communications in our view plays a vital role because its short leaps into a cheaper technology, into a more individual technology, into more attractive technology on how people relate to each other on an individual basis between family members, between local businesses, between businesses and local authorities and so on. It is our fundamental belief that mobile communications is here to stay, it’s about being networked in the future, we will all be networked in some way or another and I will give you couple of examples. I am pretty sure that the people present in this room today use the mobile phone differently today then 3 years ago, it’s become more personal, you have become more dependent upon it, you are willing to use it more and I think that is something that will develop by itself going forward because now when band with is increasing and distribution is increasing then the ability for people that want to reach out to the market place that we have in all these markets are really coming after so usage will increase. From our own company perspective we have felt that we have benefited into this development by be willing to invest in new systems in new countries issuing licenses and here comes the important role of the authorities in each country to establish level playing field between the players involved so that are equal parameters upon which competition can develop and through those measure we fundamentally believe that there will be more applications that people will use and consequently we have reached an infrastructure whereby everyone will relate to in the future in a new way. It is a combined benefit, it spurs economic development, it helps the distribution of wealth issue as well as it is a base for sharing information and knowledge which are all important parameters to bring both industry and general welfare to its next level.

M. Ali Birand: Thank you very much that’s good news but tell us the most important thing, is it going to be cheaper or more expensive?

It is going to be cheaper in usage, it is always like that, it is technology building into bigger market place and there is a benefit for the consumer and the society at large absolutely. It is the way it has been developing over the last years and it will go in that direction as we see it.

Question (Ethem Sancak): Forum İstanbul’un Başkan Yardımcısıyım ve işadamıyım. Sorum diğer konuklara. Önümüzdeki yıllarda muhassır medeniyeti yakalama çabamıza destek verip, önemli bir üs haline getirecekler mi kendi şirketleri açısından ülkemizi? Bu çabamıza katkı yapacaklar mı? Üretimlerini Türkiye’de odaklamak, dünyanın başka coğrafyalarına buradan hizmet vermek. Çünkü yetkinliğimizi gördüler.

I think there are representatives here in a way pointed to the very fact that best practices is what’s needed under a globalized economy which means that if there are best practices being developed within Turkish market framework then there will be definitely center of excellences also in Turkey . I think it is a given fact and I think that all global companies will look for those centers of excellences.