| China's Economic and Trade Delegation Made a Successful Visit to Turkey |
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| 2007-06-26 08:35 MOFCOM |
On June 18, Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai headed China's economic and trade delegation to visit Turkey. During the visit, Bo co-chaired the 15th Session of China-Turkey Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Cooperation with Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen, and attended the Turkey-China Business Forum, launching ceremony of the Turkey-China Economic & Trade Cooperation website and Turkey-China Entrepreneurs' Symposium.
On June 17, the Turkey-China Business Forum was held at Turkish economic and tourist center Istanbul. 250 entrepreneurs from both China and Turkey attended the forum. Bo Xilai and Tuzmen delivered speeches respectively. Bo Xilai stated that 23 well-known Chinese enterprises from trade, science and technology, civil engineering, telecommunication and other industries joined the visit to Turkey, and he believed that cooperation between enterprises of China and Turkey would be further developed.
Turkey is abundant in natural resources, and its output of fruit and vegetable ranked the fourth while that of marble took the first place worldwide. Sino-Turkey trade and economic cooperation can be traced back to ancient times, which currently can be developed by the following aspects: encourage two-way investment between Chinese and Turkish enterprises; boost cooperation between civil engineering enterprises of the two countries; strengthen and further cooperation in aviation and tourism.
During the forum, Bo Xilai and Tuzmen co-launched the “Turkey-China Economic and Trade Cooperation”website and signed the memorandum of cooperation in website construction.
During the symposium for Chinese and Turkish entrepreneurs, Bo Xilai listened carefully to opinions from Turkish entrepreneurs, which hoped that China should expand its import from Turkey to solve the trade imbalance between the two countries. Bo Xilai replied “China never seeks excessive trade surplus and trade imbalance is caused by many reasons, which should be solved by developing trade rather than by restraining exports.”
On June 18, the 15th Session of China-Turkey Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Cooperation was held in Turkish capital Ankara. The two sides exchanged in-depth views on trade balance, industrial cooperation zone, cooperation in science and technology, civil engineering, aviation, tourism and so on.
Bo Xilai stated that great progress has been achieved since the last Session of China-Turkey Joint Commission. China-Turkey bilateral trade soared from 1.4 bn USD in 2002 to 8 bn USD in 2006, a 55% increase per year on average. From January through April of 2007, Turkey’s exports to China doubled, which was rarely seen with China’s other main trading partners. Tuzmen expressed his appreciation to China for its efforts to expand imports from Turkey and he stated that the Sino-Turkey bilateral trade has seen a stable development and hoped that it could achieve 50 bn USD in the following years.
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