Let’s know a bit more the history of Haga. It dates back to old times, very old… Cornelius Haga is the first Dutch ambassador of Ottoman Empire assigned as the first Dutch representative residing in Istanbul (Constantinople at those times) between 1612 – 1639. During his period of service, the Kingdom of the Netherlands gained many capitulations and privileges including the exemption of certain tax burden for foreigners. This period remarks the beginning of the Dutch-Turkish bilateral economic relations. After that time, Dutch people moved tulip to the Netherlands; which has now a 44% share of the worldwide trade in floricultural products. Right now, the bilateral trade reaches around 8 billion USD while the amount of FDIs from the Netherlands to Turkey for the last 17 years is almost 25 billion USD.

Well, what is the link with our consultancy? We are putting utmost efforts to energize the long dated economic relations by providing all round strategic guidance for FDIs and M&As during the market entry process. We will not of course dig into the story of tulip and its worldwide fame-probably after the visit of Haga-nor will try to enter Herring into the Turkish market because Turks like it very well cooked.

What will Haga serve now then? As we all clearly see, certain professions are in danger of being displaced by automation to the extent of 40%, based on the development level of the market. According the 2018 study of Chiacchio, one robot per one thousand employees decreases the employment by 0.16-0.20%, which makes the potential displacement highly visible. All of these figures are much more destructive in developing countries, especially the ones that are suffering from the lack of value-added production and accommodating millions of automatable professions, like Turkey. We understand that Turkey and its market need help, to make its transformation more smoothly. Why the Netherlands?

The Netherlands leads the way in the digital transformation. 74% of the Dutch companies have already automated at least half of their works and processes in the last year. Especially Amsterdam harbors thousands of start-ups, providing them a highly incentivized ecosystem and reports show that Dutch tech companies have achieved to collect 750 million euros in 2018. Furthermore, the Brexit case also shows that the true address for a technologically developed and convenient destination is the Netherlands, with more than 300 companies are in talks with the Dutch government to relocate their business aftermath.

So what does that mean? 

Let's explore it in the next article: https://hagaconsultancy.com/long-story-short-2

Thank you.

Inanc Civaz