Turkey’s largest Biz Chamber wants more trade, bullish on Lanka’s tourism

Friday, 10 January 2014 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Turkey’s largest business and industrial chamber wants more trade with Sri Lanka-and is bullish on the country’s tourism sector. “Our businessmen would like to be global players. We are excited about expanding our trade with Sri Lanka,” said Haleel Jaren, leader of the business and fact finding delegation from TUSKON (the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey) on 9 January. Jaren was addressing Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen during his courtesy call at the Ministry.

TUSKON is an umbrella for seven regional federations, 202 business associations with more than 52,000 business people members in Turkey consisting of more than 140,000 firms. TUSKON is the largest and most widespread non-profit institution representing business and industry communities of Turkey. “With our wide representation across Turkey, we dedicate ourselves to share know-how, experience and communication networks with our businessmen who would like to be global players,” said Jaren. “We also do lots of B2B matchmaking. We are excited about expanding our trade with Sri Lanka. Lanka’s tourism sector is attractive to us for business and investment links,” he added. Addressing the delegation, Minister Bathiudeen said: “We invite TUSKON members to enter Sri Lanka and partner with us to leverage opportunities in South Asia. Sri Lanka’s strategic logistical positioning and more importantly, the FTAs with India and Pakistan give access to a huge 1.6 billion South Asian market for Turkish investors. In fact, these FTAs give preferred access to more than 8,000 product lines. I am also pleased to inform you of our successful partnership at the Izmir Fair, Turkey in August last year where we were given a great opportunity introduce our exports to Central Asian and Russian buyers.” A G20 economy with a 70 million population/market, Turkey is the eastern-most member in the powerful NATO bloc. According to the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka, trade with Turkey has been on an increasing trend lately. The total trade turnover in 2005 which stood at $ 97.4 million almost doubled by 2012 to $ 190.57 million, registering an increase of 95.66% (compared to 2005). The balance of trade between Sri Lanka and Turkey has been in favour of Sri Lanka during the last eight years, increasing six-fold-from $ 14.7 million to $ 88.39 million by 2012.