JEDDAH, 8 March 2003 — A 110-member Turkish trade delegation, headed by Foreign Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen, arrived here yesterday to initiate steps toward doubling the existing $1 billion bilateral trade.
“Our bilateral trade is almost evenly balanced, though our exports have a slide edge over our imports,” Tuzmen told a meeting of Saudi and Turkish businessmen at the Jeddah Hilton. The mission, which will move on to Riyadh tomorrow, will also explore the prospects of investments,” said the minister, who is set to meet Commerce Minister Osama Faqeeh, among others.
“We’re looking at new ventures in the Kingdom and also Saudi investments in our country,” he said. The visiting minister also reviewed the progress of Islamic banking in his country. The delegation will also meet with the Jeddah and Riyadh chambers of commerce and industry. “This is the biggest Turkish trade delegation to visit the Kingdom so far,” Turkish Consul General Hilmi Dedeoglu said.
The visit comes ahead of the 8th Saudi-Turkish joint economic commission meeting scheduled in Riyadh from April 16. Mehmet Aydin, state minister for joint economic commission meetings, will head the Turkish side at the Riyadh event, which follows the “successful” joint commission meeting held in Ankara in 2000. One of the delegation’s objectives is to “further ease the way of doing business with the Kingdom,” which has recently introduced privatization and opened up investment and tourism sectors.
Turkish Commercial Attache Ozkan Aydin said the time was opportune for Turkish businessmen to accelerate their exports to the Kingdom since its imports from the US and certain other Western countries had dropped after the Sept. 11 events.
“Aside from exploring investment avenues, our upcoming joint commission meeting will focus on how best to offer our expertise in tourism, which nets our country $10 billion a year,” the consul general said.
