ANKARA - Industry and Trade Minister Ali Coskun said on Friday that foreign trade volume between Turkey and Syria, which is currently 750 million U.S. dollars, could reach two billion U.S. dollars within a year.
Coskun met with Syrian Industry Minister Issam Al-Zaim.
Speaking at the meeting, Coskun said improvement of economic relations between the neighboring countries in the globalization process gained more importance.
Coskun underlined that Turkey and Syria has a very important basis like culture and brotherhood to improve bilateral economic and social relations, stating that, ''it is time to take lesson from history and develop relations.''
Coskun said great progress was recorded in foreign trade volume of the two countries in the past one year, stressing that this figure was not adequate when the potential between the two countries are taken into consideration.
Coskun said, ''we opened gates to Syria on construction services, industry, trade and tourism relations'', adding that this visit would contribute to the improvement of relations.
Syrian Industry Minister Al-Zaim said they were pleased over relations between the two countries, and noted that those constituted the solid basis for improvement of relations.
Al-Zaim said as the industry ministries of the two countries, they favored cooperation, noting that there were many fields of cooperation between the two countries.
The guest minister called on Syrian and Turkish businessmen to hold joint studies.
(AY-AÖ) 13.06.2003