| Lütfü KÜÇÜK | |
| Chairman of the Board of TUGIAD |
|
May neighbor countries provide a solution for Turkey against the global crisis? |
September 11th was a date we remember as the anniversary of a terrorist attack, which led to the restructuring of the world politics. But, in the future we will remember the September 11th not only to remember the terror but also a milestone of a crisis which deeply impacts the global financial system and furthermore, we still don’t know what will be the results of this crisis. The process, which started with the decision of bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers which was the 4th biggest investment bank of the US of the world, is now cooled down with the support amounting US 247 billions $ of the leading central banks of the world and with the rescuing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage companies and American International Group (AIG), which is one of the leading insurance companies of the United States, by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve with the decision of the Bush government.
In addition, Russian government decided to compensate the loss in Moscow Stock Exchange with an operation amounting US 7.2 billions $. But, despite all these measures, nobody can say that the financial crisis is over.
As TUGIAD members, we are in the middle of a financial crisis, which grows deeper and deeper since the second half of 2007 and in an environment where we experience a serious economic constriction and we even see the signals of a deep recession. We notice in advance the eventual market constrictions in EU countries and in USA and we keep on drawing our attentions to the neighbors of our country and to the African countries.
To move towards new markets other than our traditional export markets where we receive strong recession signals from, is a must in order to support the real sector and to increase our export volume. It is obvious that our country, which aims an export dependent growth, can’t achieve a sustainable growth and ensure a permanent success without increasing its trade with its neighbor countries.
During the last weeks, we have experienced in Turkey a controversial process focused around three important countries and related developments followed. These three neighbor and target countries that Turkey should focus on both in terms of trade and of foreign politics are Russia, Armenia and Iran.
Russia applied to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1993 and has been negotiating since within this framework, while it is conducting negotiations to make bilateral agreements with members of WTO. These WTO members are USA, Japan, Swiss, China, Canada, Australia and European Union.
The goal of these negotiations is to agree on bilateral trade agreements. After the completion and approbation of these bilateral agreements, the parties of these agreements will approve the WTO membership of Russia.
Russia conducts bilateral trade negations with European Union too. The framework of these negotiations is the partnership and collaboration agreement, the fist version of which was signed in 1994 between Russian And European Union. It is expected that the negotiations for the bilateral trade agreement would complete by the end of 2008 and that Russia would become a full member of World Trade Organization at the beginning of 2009.
In case EU and Russia do agree on a bilateral trade agreement (what means the creation of a free trade zone), Turkey will be obliged to respect the same regime when importing from Russia. But for the exportation to Russia, Turkey and Russia should make a separate bilateral trade agreement. During this period when the conditions of making trade with Russia is expected to change, we should be very careful to keep this transition period short and not allow Turkey to suffer any loss.
Turkey, considering also the tourism revenues, should take important steps with Russia with respect to commercial issues and carefully protect our foreign trade interests.
The visit of our President Abdullah Gül has an historical importance for improving our existing relations with Armenia and starting a new process of dialogue. We hope that this visit could result in concrete positive gains by “letting history to historians” in the relationship between Turks and Armenians. Armenia is a country to which our exportation amount US 500 billions $, as stated by the Minister of External Affairs Ali Babacan, despite the fact that our customs gates are closed. The opening of our border, together with the increase of border trade, would contribute a lot to the development of both the people and the countries of the region, to the creation of a dialogue and new friendships.
We need to point out also that Turkey, which made positive steps forward, should insistently ask Armenia to do the same.
Turkey may play the most important role in settling the political problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Armenia has a very important geographical position with respect to the land transport to Russian Federation, Turkic Republics and even to Iran. It is an important transit route and an important target country for exporters and Turkish transport companies.
We have also witnessed recently very important mutual visits between Iran and Turkey. We think that the visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the Turkish-Iranian Forum, to which we participated as representatives of TUGIAD, will substantially accelerate our commercial and political relations.
The guest President, who provided constructive answers in the general meeting for each problems experienced by our businessmen, inspired confidence to our exporters with his positive approaches.
Russia, Iran and Armenia have a big potential in this region with respect to many issues such as energy resources, transfer of the energy to new markets, transit trade, chemistry, construction, tourism, consumption goods and common investments etc…. Considering the dynamism of these developing countries, we wish that our government develops “result oriented” and “well designed” projects to increase the wealth of the people and that the business world takes initiative within this framework.
Consequently, in relation to these three important neighbor countries, we should focus on the targets by preparing specific industries oriented foreign trade action plans and act on a perfect agenda within the scope of the international trade agreements.
And we, as TUGIAD, will keep bringing forward our proposals about neighbor countries and Africa in every platform and in every occasion.
