Ayvalık was the most important trade and port city on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, after İzmir, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We do not know whether there was a chamber of commerce in Ayvalık – then Ayvalı – in those days. We call the first establishment date of Ayvalık Chamber of Commerce 1923. We can tell it by looking at the logo that has been carried until today. The oldest documents we have found are expense receipts dated 1340 (1924). The full name of the chamber is “Turkish Republic Ayvalık Chamber of Industry.”

The entire population of Ayvalık in those days was constituted by the Lausanne exchanges. Since the first exchanges came in September 1923, the Ayvalık Chamber of Commerce and Industry must have been established in the last quarter of 1923 by these first exchangers. They work in a building that they rented from the Republican People’s Party, with the stuff that is also provided by the Republican People’s Party. The board of directors, consisting of the president, vice president and five members, worked to enrich and diversify the commercial life of Ayvalık in those difficult days, with a clerk with a monthly salary of 30 lira and a janitor with a monthly salary of 15 lira.

The newly formed “Republic of Turkey” after the occupation bound the establishment and functioning of the chambers to new principles with the law of “Chambers of Commerce and Industry” dated April 22, 1925 and numbered 655. This law obliges those dealing with commerce and industry to be members of chambers.

The “Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Chambers of Craftsmen and Commodity Exchanges Law” dated 18.11.1943 and numbered 4355 assigns chambers of commerce to these three areas. Tradesmen must also be members of chambers of commerce. This situation continued until the tradesmen and small businesses established their own associations with the law of “The Union of Tradesmen Associations” dated 25.04.1949 and numbered 5373. With the law dated 08.03.1950 and numbered 5590, the Chambers and Commodity Exchanges and the Union came to its current position.

Ayvalık Chamber of Commerce continues its life today as an organization where its members can defend their rights and interests under changing conditions. In this context, it completed its compliance studies with the Accreditation Standard published by TOBB in 2012 and effectively implements its requirements.