Activities - East Meets West:
Banking, Commerce and Investment Colloquium

Imperial Mint
15-16 October 1999

During the colloquium organised at the Imperial Mint by the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre, in collaboration with the European Association of Banking and Financial History and the Economic and Social History Foundation of Turkey, themes such as economic relations among Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the Istanbul Stock Exchange, fiscal structure and monetary system of the Ottoman Empire in the XIXth century were debated. The colloquium, whose scope and content were conceived by Prof. Sevket Pamuk, convoked economists, specialists of economic history and bankers, from Turkey and around the world such as André Autheman, Prof. Boris Barth, Prof. Christopher Clay, Prof. Çaglar Keyder, Prof. David Williams, Prof. Jacques Thobie, Lorans Tanatar-Baruh, Prof. Murat Çizakça and Prof. Zafer Toprak.

The colloquium ended by a panel where were debated the necessary criterions to raise Istanbul, financial heart in the course of the Ottoman Empire to the status of the regional centre of the world economy in the near future. Mete Basol (Bankers Trust), Christian Manset (Compagnie financière ottomane), Thierry Walrafen (Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations), Prof. Deniz Gökçe (Bogaziçi University) participated in this panel chaired by Aclan Acar, General Director of the Ottoman Bank. During the panel, was emphasized the fact that Istanbul, as a cultural and economic intermediary is able to establish itself as a regional financial centre thanks to its potential market, the circumstances legally credible, the financial products in conformity with the world-wide standards, its qualified human resources and the existence of the multinational companies.

Programme
Biographies
Summaries

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