JEDDAH, 9 March 2003 — Turkish Foreign Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen has proposed that the Kingdom form a bilateral business council and said he hopes for a new era of Saudi-Turkish relations.
“We formed a bilateral business council in Turkey on Wednesday. We propose that you establish its counterpart organization here to help accelerate trade,” the minister told a meeting at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry yesterday. Ibrahim M. Aljomaih, who heads the chamber’s finance committee, chaired the meeting.
Tuzmen raised a number of issues that needed sorting out between the two countries expeditiously and suggested that whatever “barriers and obstacles” there are in the promotion of trade should be removed. “During my tenure of office as minister, I want our bilateral trade to increase to $3 billion from a little over $1 billion now,” he said.
“The Kingdom is of the utmost importance to us. I believe a lot more could be done to improve our exports to the Kingdom which currently amount to half a billion dollars. This represents just half percent of the annual Saudi imports,” he said.
“I want the per capita income and investment to grow. We produce and distribute 17,000 different products and export to 220 countries. We’ve a lot more to sell to this part of the world, be they products or services,” he said.
The minister called for a rethink on visa and customs procedures, double taxation, and transportation of goods by road.
Giving an example, he said: “Our refrigerated trucks carrying perishable items are not allowed into the Kingdom. So we have to unload and reload them into a local vehicle at the transit points. Unloading and reloading cause damage to cargo and result in unnecessary losses. There are also prohibitive penalties levied at the customs checkpoints,” he said and proposed that new regulations could be considered to remove such bottlenecks.
Later, talking to reporters, Tuzmen said: “We had a bitter experience in the aftermath of the Gulf War. After 10 years, our per capita income dropped from $3,500 to $2,000, but the United States and Britain increased their per capita income — the US from $20,000 to $32,000 and the UK from $16,000 to $25,000. So we are all for peace.”
Asked what position his country would take in the event of a war on Iraq, the minister said: “We’ll take the position that suits our country best.”
Emphasizing that the 110-member delegation that he is now leading to the Kingdom means business, the minister said: “I suggest Saudi businessmen have individual meetings with our members and seriously consider proposals for joint ventures, partnerships, agencies and distributorships.”
The delegation, which earlier toured Algeria and Sudan, will move to Riyadh tomorrow for a two-day visit.
