JEDDAH, 31 October 2007 — Turkish officials in the Kingdom say that applications for Haj from Turkish nationals have been annually increasing. “About 700,000 applications have been received from our citizens to perform Haj this year against our 70,000 pilgrim quota,” Turkish Consul General Ahmet Yildiz said on Monday night.
“Even the number of Umrah pilgrims has been going up, with around 200,000 expected to have come for the mini-pilgrimage this year, as against 130,000 last year,” Yildiz told Arab News on the sidelines of Turkish National Day celebrations at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The occasion was the 84th anniversary of the proclamation of the Turkish republic.
Yildiz and his wife Emine received chief guest Muhammad A. Tayeb, director general of Foreign Affairs in the Makkah Region, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, diplomats and local businessmen.
A large Turkish expatriate community also attended the event, which was marked by a cultural program presented by Turkish children.
Tayeb said Saudi Arabia’s relations with Turkey were close and had further strengthened with the visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to Ankara last year. In fact, the two countries entered a new era of political and economic relations with the king’s historic three-day visit.
“Turkey today is a powerful democracy and its rule of law is strong,” the consul general said, adding that its trade relations with Saudi Arabia and many other countries have been continuously expanding.
More than 110,000 Turkish expatriates reside in the Kingdom, 70,000 of them in the Western Province alone, the consul general said. “They work prominently in the construction sector. They professionally excel as engineers, mechanics, technicians, restaurant operators and barbers,” he added.
The volume of trade between the two countries has reached the $3 billion mark, with Turkish exports to the Kingdom being $1.3 billion. The trade balance remains in the Kingdom’s favor.
While Turkey imports oil from Saudi Arabia, its exports to the Kingdom mainly include food and foodstuffs, machinery and construction material. “Bilateral trade will get a further boost when the Saudi-Turkish Business Council meets in January 2008,” the consul general added.
