Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Muhtar Gun said Babacan would also travel to Jeddah, where he will inaugurate the Saudi-Turkish Businessmen Meeting.
Gun said the visit of the Turkish deputy premier would boost bilateral links, especially in the field of trade and investment.
Babacan, while addressing the businessmen's meeting in Jeddah, would call on Saudi investors to look at Turkey as an ideal investment destination, he added. The business meeting will bring together hundreds of businessmen from both sides. Turkey, on the one hand, needs Saudi experience and investment in the energy sector to curtail current account deficit figures.
Turkey has expressed keen interest to welcome Saudi investments in the country’s key industries even as the Turkish government and private companies eye a bigger slice in multibillion dollar Saudi infrastructure and construction projects. It was not immediately known whether the Saudi officials and Babacan will discuss the anti-dumping case in which Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) has been accused of dumping monoethylene glycol by the Turkish.
The Turkish case is the only one remaining with SABIC after China, the European Union and India scrapped their claims. Asked about the anti-dumping row, Ambassador Gun said this issue would be solved shortly as the two sides are in discussions.
“I am particularly pushing for an early solution,” said the diplomat, while referring to the positive moves by the Turkish government.
Turkey’s government agencies have “agreed to re-evaluate the case against SABIC” after the European Union and India last month dropped similar claims against the company, said a Bloomberg report quoting Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, deputy minister of petroleum and mineral resources. The Turkish claim is the only such case against SABIC. China dropped a similar claim of its own in 2010.
Saudi authorities last year put the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in charge of negotiations over alleged dumping with the EU and India. Prince Abdulaziz is leading all talks on dumping claims against Saudi petrochemicals exporters. Saudi Arabia “respects all the international trade agreements that it had within the framework of the World Trade Organization,” said Prince Abdulaziz.
