Turkey seeks balanced trade growth with Russia

MOSCOW

Turkey wants to improve trade ties with Russia in a balanced manner and based on a win-win approach, Trade Minister Mehmet Muş has said.

The minister noted that the bilateral trade volume would be around $30 billion this year, which implies that the target to bring bilateral trade volume to $100 billion set by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is achievable.

“We have developed significant cooperation in the energy field. We want to expand this cooperation to cover other areas in energy,” Muş said, who paid a visit to Moscow for the 17th Turkish Russian Intergovernmental Joint Economic Commission after attending the Kazan Summit 2021 in Tatarstan.

“I had very productive meetings in Moscow and signed a memorandum of understanding. There were some outstanding problems, and during my visit, some of those problems were resolved. The steps taken in Moscow will help two countries further develop trade ties,” Muş said.

The Russian side also agrees that the bilateral trade volume should increase to the targeted $100 billion in a balanced manner, the minister added.

“Russia is a resource-rich country but wants to diversify its industry, and Turkey may play a role here,” Muş said.

There is an imbalance in trade and economic relations between the two countries to the energy side; traditional cooperation in industry, agriculture and transport segments continues, Russian News Agency TASS quoted Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying.

The trade turnover between Russia and Turkey was just $20 billion in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but gained 40 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2021, Novak said at the Russian-Turkish business forum on July 30.

“We already see the dynamics recovering,” he added.

He also said that more than 3,000 Turkish businesses are currently operating in different sectors of the Russian economy.

“We are certainly interested in investments, the input of experience and professionalism to Russia in areas where our Turkish partners have the expertise,” he stated.

“I call upon you to pay attention to new sectors: IT, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, aircraft production, and many other sectors that today are becoming the drivers of development,” the deputy prime minister said.

Russia and Turkey are holding talks to clinch a long-term gas transit deal, Novak added.

According to Novak, the working group discussed issues between Gazprom Export and Turkey’s Botaş as part of the mixed intergovernmental bilateral commission’s meeting.

“This refers to concluding a long-term [gas] transit agreement,” he said without providing details.