Gaziantep Metropolitan Mayor Fatma Şahin said during the remodeling of the Middle East everyone will compete to access these markets, noting that Gaziantep offers very important opportunities, especially for foreign investors. Coming together with journalists in Istanbul late Tuesday, Mayor Şahin shared the urban transformation projects to attract foreign investors in Gaziantep as well as the projects to be introduced in the international real estate professionals fair known as MIPIM, in which they will participate for the first time this year.

Şahin announced that they will participate in the MIPIM Fair, which is held in Cannes, France in March every year and visited by close to 25,000 real estate professionals and all the big players in the world, for the first time this year.

Highlighting the reason for joining MIPIM to be held on March 13-16 this year as forming a union of discourse and action, Şahin said they will not be able to manage competition and therefore achieve any goals if they cannot speak the same language as the world.

"As Gaziantep, we want to make a name for ourselves especially with urban transformation projects. We are working on making our city livable not only for ourselves, but also for the world," Şahin said. "For this reason, it was inevitable for us to join MIPIM, the largest real estate fair in the world. We want to see the trends in the world and plan our city accordingly, as well as introduce our city and invite giant players from all over the world."Gaziantep, Turkey's eighth largest city, also impresses with the number of industrial investments it attracts. Incorporating a free zone and five organized industrial zones (OIZs) within its borders and employing 130,000 people in 950 plants in these OIZs, Gaziantep is only five hours away from a population of 5 billion, especially for Middle Eastern countries.

Referring to the state of war in the Middle East, Şahin said this will not be the case forever. Noting that when Syria and Iraq are set in order and when Afrin and Jarabulus are reconstructed, Gaziantep will be center of the region and the Middle East, Mayor Şahin stressed that when these geostrategic positions and risks are managed, they turn into a big opportunity.

Şahin said Gaziantep's exports increased by twice the average of Turkey's overall exports. Pointing out that Gaziantep is the most dynamic and competitive city of Turkey, which has grown 7.1 percent on average each year in the last 15 years, Mayor Şahin said Gaziantep was selected as one of the seven most competitive cities in the World Bank's Most Competitive Cities Knowledge Base Initiative, adding that it was evaluated as "successful and interesting in terms of economic development" in light of the scientific and technological data. "Hosting Turkey's largest organized industrial zone, Gaziantep exports more than 172 countries alone with over $6.5 billion in annual exports," she added.

Şahin noted that according to the World Bank Doing Business Report, a company can be established in an average of 6.5 days in Gaziantep.