Saleh: Trade Exchange With Turkey Expected To Hit $5 bln In 2012

Egypt and Turkey have profound strategic relations attributed by friendship and joint cooperation in all the fields on the political, economic and commercial levels, said Hatem Saleh, Egyptian Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade.

The minister has pointed to the efforts of coordinating the ongoing talks between Egypt and Turkey had achieved a quantum leap forward the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and Turkey, as it exceeded $ 4 billion by the end of 2011; compared to $ 1.5 billion in 2007, rose 166%. He expected the trade exchange volume between the two countries to exceed $ 5 billion by the end of 2012.

The economic cooperation between the two countries represents a successful and distinguished example for the bilateral cooperation based on joint interests of the two countries, which concluded to getting involved in the free trade zone agreement between the two countries in 2007.

Egypt keens on the continuity of the joint work based on development and supporting neighborly relations, Hatem Saleh said. He added that despite the hard circumstances the Egypt lived in the past period, but this period has witnessed notable activity on the level of the government and businessmen from the Egyptian and Turkish sides through exchanging visits between the officials and businessmen.

These statements came on the context of the speech delivered by Eng. Hatem Saleh during the events of the Egyptian Turkish business forum that attended by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayipp Erdogan, and Hesham Kandil, Egyptian Prime Minister, besides a large number of ministers of the two countries.