British Ambassador Says They Are Supporting Turkey's Eu Membership And Trying To Help It To Be Ready When Time Has Come

ANKARA - British Ambassador to Turkey Peter Westmacott said on Monday that they, as Britain, were supporting Turkey European Union (EU) membership and for this reason they wanted to help Turkey's preparation process.
Westmacott, who chatted with reporters, said that they were carrying out a number of activities to improve human rights and civil society and to develop legal and administrative structure in order to help Turkey be ready for EU membership when time came and they were working together with Turkish officials.
British Ambassador to Turkey Westmacott said that they wished to increase bilateral trade volume with Turkey which was six billion U.S. dollars at the moment, to ten billion dollars in 2010 at the latest. He added that economic and commercial relations between Turkey and Britain were pleasing, but there were many things to be done to further improve those relations.
Upon a question regarding low level of foreign investments in Turkey, Westmacott said that there was a problem in the level of foreign investments in Turkey. Noting that Turkey could not gain the confidence of foreign investors in the last few years, Westmacott said that there were examples that Turkish government or Turkish partners could not fulfill the liabilities stemming from contracts and this made foreign investors uneasy.
Westmacott said that arbitration system was not effective in disagreements and jurisdiction process was not functioning fast and efficiently when the problem was brought to jurisdiction and all of these made foreign investors uneasy.
Problems would be solved if contracts were abided by and judicial process operated rapidly and efficiently, Westmacott stated.
Westmacott noted that according to his impressions, the government and majority of Turkish business world were conscious of this problem and determined to solve it.
Westmacott recalled that Britain experienced a difficult privatization process and added that Turkey could benefit from Britain's experiences in liberalizing electricity market and rearranging water market regulations.
Westmacott said that Turkey could avoid making the mistakes previously made by Britain by benefiting from Britain's experiences and added that they informed Turkish officials about this issue.
(GC-BRC) 22.09.2003