TUSKON guests head for Anatolia with stacks of agreements

Yesterday also saw tens of thousands of business meetings between foreign and Turkish tradesmen as well as several country presentations from various continents. As a result of the two-day summit, businesspeople who attended the program sealed trade agreements worth millions of dollars in various sectors, among them food, construction, weapons, furniture, textiles, mining, chemicals and others.

The TUSKON guests will be hosted in 62 Anatolian provinces from Friday to Sunday. Speaking to Today’s Zaman, businesspeople from Europe, the Middle East and South Asia expressed their appreciation for the large event and also shared the details of agreements they secured over the last two days. While some considered moving all their investments to Turkey, others found partners for joint ventures or simply agreed to trade.

TUSKON’s 2nd Turkey-World Trade Bridge brought 2,300 businesspeople from 135 countries together with 2,200 of their Turkish counterparts in İstanbul to set the foundation for lasting trade relations between those countries.

Iraqi firms the Vana Group, which operates in the furniture industry, and El Kimme Ltd., which focuses on the food sector, bought goods worth $1.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively, from several Turkish companies. Abdul Salam Alqaysi, the director of the Federation of Iraq Chambers of Commerce, the largest in the country, said they came as a delegation of 21 members and that it is likely most entered into similar agreements. “These kinds of trade relations will also contribute to securing stability in Iraq,” he added, commending on TUSKON’s initiative.

Thousands of business meetings were held between foreign and Turkish tradesmen during the 2nd Turkey-World Trade Bridge, organized by the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON) in İstanbul. Algerian firms secure more than $60 million Algerian firms attracted attention because of their dynamism and swiftness in securing high-level trade agreements at the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists’ (TUSKON) fair and convention. On the second day of the business meetings, a single construction company, B.A.E.R., signed a trade agreement worth $6.5 million and also agreed to work jointly with the Turkish Er Yapı construction company in Algeria to build 1,600 apartments for social housing. That estimated cost of the project is $55 million. In addition, İmpermerie Belfort, Mondiatex and Madjid signed agreements to buy machinery, textile products and food, respectively, from Turkish providers. The total amount of trade volume those three companies reached at the event was more than $560,000.

Sudanese Abumeroin Co. shook hands with Turkish gun producer Sarsılmaz and agreed to buy 1,000 guns as part of their first deal. Awad Abdurrahman Awad, the owner of Abumeroin, said they are targeting increasing this number to 10,000 in the near future. “We were buying guns from Germany, Italy and Russia but we will only buy them from Turkey from now on,” he noted, adding that they are also looking to buy hospital equipment in Turkey.

One of Bangladesh’s biggest construction companies, AKN, has agreed to a joint venture with Turkey’s Özdemir Construction Co. The two will build a marble cutting and processing factory at a cost of around $8 million.

Manuel Molina, the president of the Alcaldia de Caracas, a public service company working for the municipality of Caracas in Venezuela, said they will consider buying between 40 and 60 garbage collection trucks from a Turkish company based in İzmir with which they made contact at the TUSKON event. The estimated volume of the trade between the two, he said, will probably be several million US dollars.

‘EU should notice Turkey’s potential’

Cleo Baele and Kurt Bertier from Belgian textile company Black Balloon said they had no business connections with Turkey in the past but after seeing the opportunities present in the country they began to consider moving all their investments here. They noted that it was too expensive to produce in Belgium and that Turkey could therefore be a good match for their cost concerns.

When reminded of the fact that Turkish schools operating in over 100 countries worldwide have been very helpful in building the vast business network visible at the TUSKON event, Bertier said, “The event is destroying boundaries.”

Walter Freiberg, the owner of German chemical industry company Rabbasol-Chemie, said he signed trade agreements worth 225,000 euros as a result of meetings he had over the past two days. He told Today’s Zaman how his ideas changed about Turkey after experiencing the ambiance during the two world trade bridges organized by TUSKON. “I have to confess that my view of Turkey has completely changed. Now, I am going to go back to Germany and tell my friends that the European Union should notice the country’s potential and better embrace it without any more time lost,” he said.

Sri Lankan Allied Trading International Ltd. General Manager Haafiz Ifthikar Ahmed said thanks to the TUSKON event he almost tripled the volume of trade he has been doing with Turkey, which ranged between $150,000 and 200,000 over the past couple of years. He added that he was particularly impressed with the professionalism of the organizing party and the hospitality of the Turkish people.