ISTANBUL - High ranking representatives of the Chinese biggest construction companies met with their Turkish colleagues for the Iraqi market in Istanbul on Tuesday.
The 17-member Chinese delegation who came to Turkey to discuss the issue of reconstruction of Iraq and existing cooperation opportunities, held bilateral contacts with representatives of Turkish construction companies in the meeting organized by Turkish-Chinese Business Council.
Yavuz Onay, the Chairman of the Turkish-Chinese Business Council said while responding to questions of press members that a big business potential came out with the collapse of the Iraqi regime. ''As no single country will exist in Iraq on its own, companies have to set up consortia and work in cooperation there,'' he said. Onay pointed out the cost of reconstruction of countries was high and it could not come true in a short time.
''The reconstruction of Iraq should be finished within 10-15 years to prevent economic and political chaos. Therefore neither the U.S./Britain nor Turkey can't reconstruct Iraq on its own. Money is not enough, you also need cheap labor force and technology. One of the most important reasons for Turkey and China to come together is the cheap labor, technology and finance power of China. If the companies of the two countries can cooperate, they can demand taking part in the reconstruction of Iraq,'' he said. He added that companies should make cooperation on project basis.
When asked how would the U.S. regard cooperation between Turkey and China, Yavuz Onay stated that ''cooperation is necessary for reconstruction of the region in short time.''
Onay said that Chinese companies were interested in some projects in Turkey, but they did not construct any buildings so far and stated that Turkish and Chinese companies competed with each other in Turkey and other countries.
''We aim to get rid of this competition and we want to provide companies of the two countries with working together with maximum profit by forming consortium. Contractors of the two countries have sufficient experience and knowledge about the matter. I think that they will prefer consortium to price cutting,'' Onay said.
Stating that Turkish companies did not have any investment in China and there was not competition power in China due to labor force, Onay said that there should be high technology to compete with Chinese companies.
Onay said that China was superior to Turkey on construction technology and added that Chinese contractors wanted to take part in construction of the third strait bridge, restructuring of railway network and construction of hydroelectric power plant in Turkey.
(Öª-EÖ-AY) 19.08.2003