ARUS 5th Ordinary General Assembly Held

Anatolian Rail Transportation Systems Cluster (ARUS) 5th Ordinary General Assembly was held. In the general assembly, where the permanent and substitute members are determined, the new board of directors will choose among themselves and determine the president. At the meeting, honorary and founding chairman, late Prof. Dr. Sedat Çelikdoğan was commemorated and a part of his life story was reflected on the screens.

Acting on the principle of “Rail systems are our national cause”, representatives serving the industry in many provinces of Anatolia came together at the Ankara OSTİM Conference Hall. At the meeting, the problems of the sector, its vision and future plans were discussed.

OSTİM President Orhan Aydın explained the processes in his opening speech and said, “The way to achieve success is to climb the stairs with firm steps”. Aydın continued his words as follows; “The 51% requirement in domestic production is a very important step. Turkey caught what it lost in automobiles in rail systems. We caught the brand in rail transportation systems with domestic and national studies.”

In his speech, ASO President Nurettin Özdebir said, “Thoughts are seeds, words are seeds. Whatever you say, you will raise it,” he said. Özdebir said, “We came from difficult roads. We are together to support our industry. The construction of local and national tram and metro vehicles started with teams including Ömer Yıldız and Ali İhsan Uygun in the early days. It was at that time that the seeds planted began to sprout. TCDD also has important studies. They own it, they work together with a full team spirit in domestic and national production.”

Yalçın Eyigün, General Manager of Infrastructure Investments of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, who attended the meeting, said, “They talk about crazy projects. Eurasia tunnel, Marmaray, Kanal Istanbul, Airport. These are all crazy projects. It is understood that the 51% domestic requirement is by effort. This has been a milestone for us. Now we have increased this share to 60% and started to implement it. We are working in the public and private sectors, we have established working groups, how can we increase domestic and national production and use”. Eyigün said, “We are nationalizing the new airport metro line. The engines of the new metro are domestic and national. Our engineer, our worker developed it. We reduce foreign dependency," he said.

In the meeting, the establishment of ARUS was remembered again with a video show summarizing its goals and achievements.

In the second part of the meeting, OSTİM Technical University Rector Murat Yülek gave information about education, technology, domestic and national production studies.

ARUS President and TCDD General Manager Ali İhsan Uygun started his words by saying, “Love makes you cry, trouble makes you talk”. Appropriate “We are both in love and in trouble. We are lovers of Turkey, we are in the business of doing business. We must remove the barriers between the public and private sectors. We are paving the way for the private sector. We should develop joint projects.” said. We started the domestic and national wagon production in Istanbul with Ömer Yıldız. As an operator, we built the first wagon, RTE. This attracted great interest in many fairs. They were interested in the operator's construction of wagons," he said. Appropriate “We have to build a brand. In order to compete with the world, we must produce added value. Our private sector has this power and vision.” he continued.

After the speeches, the permanent and substitute members were determined by voting. Discussions were held regarding the working schedule of the new Board of Directors.