Evaluating attendance of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on April 12-13, Chairman of Turkish-American Business Association (TABA/AmCham) Ugur Terzioglu stressed that the visit is an important step to relieve the stain in Turkish-American relations and said, “U.S. President Barack Obama, who hosts the Nuclear Security Summit, and Prime Minister Erdogan will meet within the frames of the summit.
We are hopeful that leaders can make steps towards resettlement of the problems that cause strains in the relations between two countries.”
Underscoring the importance of focusing on bilateral trade and investment, Ugur Terzioglu said, “United States and Turkey are strategical partners. We hope that this partnership will not be damaged and strong ties between two countries will develop further through model partnership, including important developments in commercial relations. With respect to our government’s politics and our national interests, we are hopeful that political clouds between Turkey and US will be dissipated and trade and investment will continue to progress by all means.”
Reminding that volume of trade between Turkey and U.S. reached record high $15.082 million in 2008, Terzioglu said, “But the slow down in the global trade in recent years affected also the commercial relations between Turkey and US, and trade statistics for the year 2009 were relatively low. Total volume of trade in the first 7 months of 2009 was $5.865 million, which was 34.4% less then previous year’s statistic. Turkish-American commercial relations have the potential for better statistics to be achieved. Turkish-American commercial relations mostly based on the trade between two states... But that started to change. Turkey serves as a bridge for U.S. companies to reach Middle East and Eurasia markets… and U.S. companises are aware of that.”
Stating that Turkey’s exports have been increasing in the last 10 years while the U.S. share in Turkey’s exports is decreasing, Terzioglu said, “Although Turkey’s exports have increased to $130 billion from $30 billion in 10 years, U.S. share in Turkey’s exports shrinked to 3% from 10%. These statistics prove that there is great potential for bilateral trade and investment between Turkey and United States. The concept of “model partnership” that became concrete in the meeting between Prime Minister Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama has a great importance for activating this commercial potential. Turkish-American trade can be doubled via model partnership.”
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