The Mayor of the City of Torino Piero Fassino led a mission of the territory in Turkey: in addition to the City, the Chamber of Commerce, Turismo Torino and Sagat were also present. The mission, which took place from September 12 to 14, combined different strategic purposes: institutional cooperation, triggering economic cooperation, supporting tourist-cultural promotion. Furthermore it represented an important occasion to present to the wider public, to the entrepreneurs and to the Turkish authorities the great potential of the Piedmont’s capital city.

In the morning of September 12th, in Izmir, Mayor Piero Fassino and Mayor Aziz Kocaoglu signed a Letter of Intent for cooperating in the fields of particular interest for the two cities: cultural policies, economic cooperation, cooperation among universities, urban development.

In the afternoon then Mayor Fassino met the local press while Guido Bolatto, Secretary General of the Chamber of Commerce of Torino was meeting Ekrem Demirtas President of the Chamber of Commerce of Izmir, at the seat of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, and Marcella Gaspardone Manager of Turismo Torino was meeting Riza Gençay - President of regional Izmir Tursab - the association of Turkish travel agencies - and Ali Hepsen President of the Department of Izmir Tursab.
The mission to Smirne ended with a cocktail offered by the Consulate at the Swiss Hotel. The delegation presented Torino to an audience of about 80 people including entrepreneurs, local institutions, economic and cultural bodies, the Italian community.

On September 13th the delegation went to Istanbul and focused on four main issues: tourist promotion, economic promotion, institutional and cultural cooperation.
Mayor Fassino was welcomed at the seat of the metropolitan government by Mayor Kadir Topbas with whom he discussed about future cooperation in the fields of culture and sport (Istanbul is the European Sport Capital 2012 and Torino is candidate for 2015). The two Mayors agreed upon elaborating a cooperation programme to be subscribed in a future meeting. The Mayor also met Abdurrahman Sen, Deputy Mayor in charge of Culture of the City of Istanbul with whom the cooperation intents were strengthened. Mayor Fassino then met the Undersecretary in charge of Culture and Tourism Ozgur Ozaslan.

In Istanbul the agenda scheduled four main promotional events: a meeting with the community of Italian entrepreneurs in Turkey in the presence of the Ambassador of Italy in Turkey Gianpaolo Scarante; the participation in the Plenary Session of the World Intelligent Cities summit, where Mayor Fassino gave a speech on the subject of smart cities together with the Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagis, the member of the Parliament Idris Gulluce and the Managing Editor of Hurriyet Daily News Murat Yetkin organized in cooperation with Turkish Airlines; an evening event at Palazzo Venezia entitled “Torino, a city to be discovered - culture, arts, economy, tourism and innovation” aiming at presenting the excellences of our territory to a wide public of local representatives; the presentation of the candidacy of Torino to host the World Chambers Congress in 2015 during a meeting of the World Chambers Federation General Council.

During the mission, both in Izmir and Istanbul, the Mayor met several Turkish media. The institutional mission was organized by the Central Division for International Activities of the City of Torino in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Ankara, the Italian Consulate in Izmir, the Italian Consulate General in Turkey, the City of Izmir, the Metropolitan Government of Istanbul, the Chamber of Commerce of Torino, Turismo Torino e Provincia.