ANKARA - Turkey has an annual deficit of 2-3 billion U.S. dollars in its trade with Russia, which is one of the biggest trade partners of Turkey due to natural gas purchase.
For that reason, Turkey continues initiatives in every platform to ensure balance in trade with Russia.
The Sixth Term Joint Economic Commission (JEC) meetings which can't be held between the two countries for three years is expected to be postponed again since the negotiations on natural gas price did not give any outcome.
The Fifth Term Turkish-Russian JEC Meeting was held in Ankara in October 2000.
According to information received by A.A correspondent, Russia is one of most important trade partners of Turkey.
Turkey made 1 billion 348 million U.s. dollars of export to Russia in 1998. This figure was 589 million U.S. dollars in 1999, 644 million U.S. dollars in 2000, and 923 million U.S. dollars in 2001.
Turkey imported 2 billion 152 million U.S. dollars of goods from Russia in 1998, 2 billion 374 million U.S. dollars of goods in 1999, 3 billion 887 million U.S. dollars of goods in 2000 and 3 billion 436 million U.S. dollars of goods in 2001.
Natural gas, crude oil and fuel oil are main goods imported from Russia. Around 1.4 billion U.S. dollars of a total of 3.4 billion U.S. dollars of import from Russia in 2001 was comprised of natural gas and 910 million was comprised of fuel oil and crude oil.
Turkey exported 3 billion 389.6 million U.S. dollars of goods to Russia and imported 1 billion 68.5 million U.S. dollars of goods from Russia last year.

-TURKEY WANTS NATURAL GAS PURCHASE AGREEMENT DATED 1984 TO BECOME OPERATIONAL-

Implementation of natural gas purchase agreement signed in 1984 is of vital importance for a balanced increase of trade between Turkey and Russia. The agreement which was signed in 1984 but has not been implemented since 1994 foresaw payment of 30 percent of the cost paid by Turkey in return for natural gas by the projects undertaken by Turkish contractors in that country and the rest 70 percent by Russia's purchase of goods from Turkey.
Within the terms of the agreement, officials of the two countries was meeting every year and determining the goods and amount of goods to be exported.
In accordance with the agreement, Turkey was paying natural gas price in cash to Russia and Russia was paying money to Turkish contractors undertaking projects in that country and was buying products if it wanted.
As the system has not operated in recent years, Turkey proposes payment of natural gas price in a bank, payment of money to Turkish contractors and export costs from that account. But, Russia does not accept it due to cash need.

-JEC MEETING CAN'T BE HELD-

The Sixth Term JEC Meeting with Russia was foreseen to be held in Moscow on July 25-26, 2002. But, the meeting was postponed to September-October 2002 since Russia could not organize meeting of working groups.
Then, there was election in Turkey and the meeting could not be held.
The meeting was planned to be held on July 7-9, 2003. But, it is again expected to be postponed since the negotiations on natural gas price did not give outcome.
Russia has not confirmed the date of the meeting yet.
Turkey had asked five working groups formed in fields of energy, industry, transportation, small and medium scale enterprises, standardization and contracting to convene last June.
However, Russia delayed the meeting saying that working groups except standardization and contracting were not ready for meeting.
Meeting of energy working group is of utmost importance for Turkey. Officials point out that annual cost of natural gas purchased from Russia only through the west line is 1.2 billion U.S. dollars and draw the attention that this amount increases as Blue Stream becomes operational.
This increased trade deficit between the two countries which is in favor of Russia, the officials noted.

-NATURAL GAS PURCHASE TO COST 2.5 BILLION USD IN 2012-

Energy working group meeting is important to solve foreign trade deficit problem which continuously increases since 1998.
The amount of natural gas purchased annually from Russia is 12-14 billion cubic meters currently.
With the Blue Stream, the amount of natural gas purchased from Russia annually is expected to reach 30 billion cubic meters in 2012.

-TRANSITION LICENSE PROBLEM-

One of the most important problems in trade with Russia is the truck transition licenses. Russia only gives three thousand transition licenses to Turkish trucks despite 10-15 thousand license demand. To solve this problem, use of Russian trucks in exports was brought onto the agenda. For every four Russian trucks used by Turkey, Russia would give a new transition license. But, since Russia could not province sufficient trucks, there were problems in that system.

-DEMAND FOR REDUCTION IN CUSTOMS FEES-

Turkey also demands lifting of quotas in transportation, and equalizing customs taxes in export of textile, leather, food and cleaning materials with the level of EU Common Customs tariffs.
Below is the course of trade between Turkey and Russia according to Foreign Trade Undersecretariat and State Institute of Statistics figures:

Years Export Import Deficit
--------- ------- -------- -------
1997 2.174.0 2.056.0 -118.0
1998 2.155.0 1.348.0 -807.0
1999 2.374.0 589.0 -1.785.0
2000 3.886.5 643.9 -3.242.6
2001 3.475.7 922.9 -2.552.8
2002 3.389.6 1.068.5 -2.321.1

(BRC-AY) 29.06.2003