Turkey plans to boost its trade relations with Iraq in cooperation with China, said the Turkish Economy Minister here on Monday.
Zafer Caglayan made the announcement in a press conference of Turkey-World Trade Bridge summit organized by the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON) here in Istanbul.
Turkey plans to make a visit to Iraq with a large number of Turkish businessmen in the coming days with the aim of improving its exports to Iraq, said Caglayan.
He stated that Turkey will cooperate with China in improving its export to Iraq.
"The Chinese government had expressed its intention to increase its cooperation with Turkey in entering the Middle East market especially the Iraqi market," Caglayan said answering questions of Xinhua.
In the coming days Caglayan and his delegation will visit China. Later, he expects his Chinese counterpart to arrive in Turkey for the joint economic commission. "We are looking forward to these meetings, which will speed up our cooperation," he stressed.
Caglayan also noted that Turkey has considerable amount of trade deficit with China and it would be very important to improve the trade relations with Beijing.
Currently Turkey imports from China mostly the intermediate goods and machinery equipment. The majority of energy tribunes' equipment used in energy plants in Turkey has been imported from China.
"In that context, consumable items imported from China constitute about 10 percent of Turkey's total imports. This figure is almost equal to 2.5-3 billion dollars," Caglayan said.
On the other hand the head of TUSKON, R zanur Meral told Xinhua that Turkey and China continue to cooperate and develop their partnership in Iraq.
"In the coming days we will see the result of our cooperation in concrete projects," Meral said, adding that Turkey always considers China as an important partner with whom it can cooperate anywhere in the world.
The two-day summit hosting more than 2,450 businessmen from 130 countries focuses on products relating to food, agriculture, livestock, and poultry, fast moving consumer goods and related machinery.
