Trade, Technology and the Corridor That Could Define a Generation: Inside the Türkiye–UK Strategic Forum

At a historic London venue, diplomats, financiers and technologists gathered to ask a deceptively simple question: why is one of Europe’s most consequential bilateral relationships still punching below its weight?

The room at 69 Portland Place had the feel of a gathering that knew it was overdue. Senior diplomats sat alongside investment bankers. Entrepreneurs from Anatolia compared notes with venture capitalists from Mayfair. Academics from Oxford debated AI with engineers from Google. And presiding over it all — as he has over the Türkiye–UK relationship for the better part of a decade — was Chris Gaunt, the recently appointed UK Trade Envoy, reminding the room of something both obvious and frequently overlooked: “The potential is there. The opportunities are there. The skills are there. The right people are in the right places. We have to make sure we deliver.”

The Türkiye–UK Strategic Trade and Investment Forum, convened by the British Chamber of Commerce in Türkiye (BCCT) and co-hosted by the Turkish Embassy London, was the most substantive bilateral gathering in recent memory. Its agenda — trade, investment, technology, artificial intelligence, talent — read like a map of everything that matters in the bilateral relationship, and everything that remains to be done.

A relationship of paradoxes

The headline figure is £48 billion in bilateral trade — a number that sounds impressive until you consider the scale of what is missing. Türkiye is the world’s seventeenth largest economy, a country of 85 million people, a manufacturing powerhouse and an energy crossroads. The United Kingdom is one of the world’s leading financial centres, home to some of the most sophisticated capital markets on earth, and a country with deep historical and institutional ties to Türkiye stretching back centuries. And yet, as speaker after speaker at the Forum observed, the relationship is substantially underperforming its potential.

“Total trade volume between the two countries is $24 billion,” noted Ami Skinner, HSBC’s Senior Economist for the EMEA region. “It has more than doubled over two decades. Since the signing of the FTA in 2021, there has been a further five to six billion dollar increase.” The direction of travel is right. The Turkish government has set a public target of growing bilateral trade to $30 billion within two years. Skinner characterised this as credible. What it will require, she suggested, is not just goodwill but the systematic removal of barriers that remain stubbornly in place.

The geopolitical frame

The day began with Ambassador Koray Ertaş, Türkiye’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, offering an address that was notable for its candour. He did not speak in diplomatic euphemisms. Energy security is at risk, he said. Food supply chains are under pressure. Europe — not only Türkiye — faces potential instability from migration and political fragmentation. These are real risks, and they deserve honest acknowledgement.

But his argument — delivered with the quiet confidence of someone who has watched Türkiye navigate multiple regional crises over a long diplomatic career — was that adversity has made Türkiye stronger, not weaker. “We have witnessed many conflicts over the years: two Gulf Wars, the war in Syria, the war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Caucasus and the Balkans. Türkiye preserved its stability and continued to grow despite all these surrounding conflicts. These challenges have made us stronger and more resilient as a state and as a society.”

The strategic implication was clear: at a moment when investors and governments are searching for stability in an unstable world, Türkiye’s track record of resilience is a competitive advantage. “At a time when many safe havens are shaken, Türkiye is strengthening its position.”

Capital, corridors and green finance

For Saif Malik, the CEO of HSBC UK, the bilateral relationship is already producing results — but the scale of what is possible demands a step-change in ambition. HSBC’s partnership with UK Export Finance to support a 300 megawatt solar project across seven sites in Türkiye — a €249 million green loan powering 80,000 households — was cited as a model of what public-private collaboration can achieve. It is, he argued, “exactly the kind of scalable, impactful investment that sits at the intersection of growth, sustainability, and energy security.”

The EBRD’s perspective, offered by Javed, one of the Bank’s lead investment officers in Türkiye, reinforced the point with numbers that command attention. Last year alone, the EBRD deployed €2.7 billion in Türkiye — 60 per cent of it in green transactions. Türkiye remains the Bank’s single largest country of operation, a position it has held for a decade. The message from one of the world’s most rigorous development institutions was unambiguous: we believe in Türkiye’s potential, and we are prepared to back that belief with capital.

What Turkish companies actually face

For all the optimism of the keynote addresses, the Q&A sessions produced some of the day’s most revealing exchanges. The gap between the bilateral relationship as policymakers discuss it and as companies actually experience it was on frequent display.

A founder of a Turkish AI start-up — twelve years in the UK, global customers, genuine technological capability — described the frustration of being unable to get a conversation with British corporates about solutions that would genuinely serve them. An aviation entrepreneur generating millions of pounds in revenue described spending the better part of a year trying to open a business bank account. A veteran of the Turkish angel investment community described a venture ecosystem that funds ideas but cannot fund growth: “When Turkish companies need Series A or B capital, there is no money in Türkiye. The VCs in the UK say, ‘Do you have a presence here?’ If you are based in Türkiye, it is very hard.”

Ali Uzun, a dual-qualified solicitor at Sedan & Co operating between London and Türkiye, brought welcome practicality to these exchanges. “Entering the UK market is not just a single, simple stepping stone — it is a multi-layered compliance exercise.” GDPR, AML, immigration sponsorship licences, corporate structuring: each is a genuine hurdle, and Turkish companies frequently underestimate all of them. His advice was characteristically direct: engage lawyers early, structure carefully, be patient. “The UK market is more conservative than the Turkish market.”

The AI panel: where the future lives

The second panel widened the lens considerably, and in doing so produced the day’s most intellectually substantive exchanges. Professor Bachata of Oxford’s Leonard College, Steve and Salvador from Google, and moderator Ozan of ACI Health Investment Group addressed a question that has moved from the margins of business strategy to its very centre: how do countries and companies prepare for a world in which artificial intelligence is restructuring every aspect of competitive advantage?

Salvador of Google offered a distinction that crystallised the moment: “The companies that are winning are not approaching AI with a narrow cost-cutting mindset. They are asking: how can I deploy AI to grow?” The shift from AI as an efficiency tool to AI as a growth engine — from automating existing workflows to creating entirely new business models — is, he argued, the defining transition of the current period. Companies that make it are already pulling away. Companies that do not are at risk of being left behind.

Steve, who works with schools, universities and employers across the UK on talent development, offered a counterintuitive corrective: “What employers are looking for, consistently at the top of surveys — it is communication skills.” Not technical skills. Not AI proficiency. Communication, listening, emotional intelligence, critical thinking: the capabilities that AI cannot replicate and that educational systems have too often treated as secondary to measurable academic attainment.

Professor Bachata was equally pointed on the scale-up gap. The innovation ecosystems of both Türkiye and the UK are reasonably good at producing start-ups. They are considerably less good at scaling them. “Starting up is possible, and there is a lot of attention to it. Scaling up requires a different kind of ecosystem — there I think we have more to do.”

The human equation

Chris Gaunt closed the Forum in the manner of someone who has spent a lifetime in international business and arrived at conclusions that are simple, hard-won, and true. Technology matters. Policy matters. The FTA negotiations matter. But at the end of the day — at the end of every day — it comes down to people.

“It is all to do with people. Having the right people on your side of the table — that is what makes you successful.” He drew on his years at Coca-Cola, operating across the full diversity of the world’s markets, to arrive at a principle he has applied ever since: networks of trust, built over time, between individuals who know each other and respect each other’s capabilities, are the invisible infrastructure on which all commercial relationships ultimately depend.

“I do not think it is AI that makes a difference. I think it is us: the individuals, the groups, and the networks.”

It was, perhaps, the most important thing said all day.

The BCCT Türkiye–UK Strategic Trade and Investment Forum was held on 27 March 2026 at 69 Portland Place, London. A full Forum Report is being produced by TBMag in association with BCCT.