Minister of Commerce Ruhsar Pekcan stated that they evaluate that Turkey’s commercial and economic relations with the Netherlands will gain momentum and said, “We aim to increase our mutual trade volume, which reached 9 billion dollars as of 2019, to 15 billion dollars in a balanced manner.” said.
Minister Pekcan attended the Turkey-Netherlands Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) Meeting Signing Ceremony via video conference. Pekcan and her Dutch counterpart Sigrid Kaag signed the memorandum of understanding simultaneously.
In her speech here, Pekcan pointed out that Dutch economic and commercial relations are seen as long-term and said, “We evaluate that our commercial and economic relations with the Netherlands will gain momentum in the coming period. We aim to increase our mutual trade volume, which reached 9 billion dollars as of 2019, to 15 billion dollars in a balanced manner. ” he said.
Pekcan stated that the JETCO mechanism between the two countries is an effective mechanism in which all economic relations are discussed in depth and the obstacles and problems in commercial relations are discussed with the contributions of private sector representatives.
Pointing out the importance of holding the meetings of the mechanism in question regularly and monitoring their results carefully, Pekcan said:
“At the Turkey-Netherlands JETCO 3rd Term Meeting, we discussed many different topics, from bilateral relations to mutual investments, contracting services, from trade to industrial cooperation, from technology to cooperation between private sectors, from transportation to the environment and women’s entrepreneurship, and we agreed on the memorandum of understanding we have just signed. We reflected these.”
Pekcan stated that they will do all the necessary work to implement all the issues in the memorandum of understanding and expressed his satisfaction that the Dutch delegation showed the same determination.
Stating that it was decided to hold a business forum with the participation of private sector and business world representatives from the two countries at the first opportunity when the epidemic conditions will allow face-to-face meetings, Pekcan stated that today they will also participate in the round table meeting in the virtual environment with the participation of business people from the two countries.
Pekcan underlined that the close interest shown by the private sectors of the two countries in the meeting gave them confidence that Turkey-Netherlands commercial and economic relations will reach much higher levels in the future.
“Mutual investments should be increased by creating new opportunities”
Emphasizing that one of the concrete and important areas of cooperation between Turkey and the Netherlands is the mutual encouragement of investments, Pekcan continued as follows:
“To date, the Netherlands has made a direct investment of 25.7 billion dollars in our country and ranks first among the countries with direct investments in our country with a share of 15.9 percent. The amount of investment made by our business people from Turkey in the Netherlands has reached 14 billion dollars. This figure is Turkish. “It shows that business people invest most abroad in the Netherlands. We evaluate that we can further increase our mutual investments by creating new opportunities.”
Cooperation areas
Pekcan stated that, in this context, it is extremely important to organize trade delegations and bring our business circles together in trade, investment and tourism fairs and organizations for market research and determination of mutual advantages after the epidemic, and said, “Especially in port construction and management, contracting, maritime, advanced agriculture.” “We foresee intense collaborations between Turkish and Dutch companies in the fields of technologies, organic agricultural products, environment and waste management, chemicals, energy, renewable energy, logistics and health services.” he said.
Stating that Turkish contracting companies have undertaken 6 projects worth 548 million dollars in the Netherlands so far, Pekcan said that they expect companies from Turkey to undertake more projects in the Netherlands in the coming period, and that they foresee that Turkish and Dutch contractors can cooperate in third countries.
Pekcan mentioned that they also discussed the agenda issues in the economic relations between the EU and Turkey at the meeting and said, “We share our complaints and demands about the protection measures implemented by the EU in steel imports and our expectations regarding the update of the Turkey-EU Customs Union with our EU counterparts at every opportunity.” said.
Explaining that they conveyed their demand for the inclusion of digitalization, e-commerce services and public procurement within the scope of the Customs Union, Pekcan stated that they raised the issue of facilitating visas and their desire to start negotiations within this year.
Pekcan added that within the scope of JETCO, the issue of women’s entrepreneurship was also discussed, and as a concrete example of this, they planned to hold a joint women’s workshop in November with the participation of business people and NGOs from the two countries.
Pekcan later attended the roundtable meeting with her counterpart Sigrid Kaag, attended by business people from both countries.
Source: https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ekonomi/bakan-pekcan-turkiye-hollanda-jetco-anlasmasini-imzaladi/1988527
