Turkey eyes $10 billion in trade with Saudis in 2010
Posted by meb at February 4th, 2009
Embarking on a three-day official visit to Saudi Arabia, President Abdullah Gül has said Turkey aims to increase the trade volume between the two countries to $10 billion in 2010, noting that the current trade volume stands at around $5.5 billion.
Gül, speaking at a press conference ahead of his departure for Saudi Arabia, stated that increasing economic and commercial cooperation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia would also be discussed during his talks with Saudi officials.
In addition to Foreign Trade Minister Kürşad Tüzmen, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım and President Gül’s spouse, Hayrünnisa Gül, some 150 businesspersons are also accompanying the president during his visit, in hopes of winning infrastructural and industrial contracts.
Turkish diplomats, speaking to Reuters ahead of the visit, said Saudi King Abdullah wanted to discuss the situation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which was recently the target of a deadly assault by Israel, as well as Iran’s growing influence in the region. “We are friends with both [Iran and Saudi Arabia]. … But for us the visit is mainly for business,” a Turkish diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Turkey hopes that bilateral trade with Saudi Arabia, which had already risen to about $5 billion in 2008 from less than $2 billion in 2006, will increase to around $15 billion by the end of 2013, the diplomat said.
In remarks published on Monday by Saudi newspapers, Gül suggested that Iran would not have gained so much influence if Arab states had not left a vacuum on issues affecting the Middle East, such as Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. “As a Muslim nation, Iran is entitled to have aspirations, and it likes to defend Islamic issues, but Palestine is Arab and there is Sunnism in Palestine, so it is up to Palestinians and Arabs to initiate … a solution for these issues.”
source: Today’s Zaman
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