TRABZON - State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said on Thursday that Turkey was among the first 20 countries in the world with its trade volume.
Responding to questions of journalists, Tuzmen said that the export figures of Turkey were very positive and nobody had the right to underestimate those figures.
Tuzmen stated that one of each three tv sets and washing machines sold in Europe were Turkish brand, adding that ''one of each four cars sold in Europe is made in Turkey. These are very important figures. Turkey will export goods worth of 100 billion dollars until the year 2010. This figure means Turkey's increasing its gross national product per capita to 7,000 U.S. dollars. It means non-existence of any problem in respect of democratization.''
Referring to the agreements concluded with Iraq before the war, Tuzmen said that ''we had signed a contract of 700 million dollars in our last visit to Iraq before the war and 675 million part of it came true. Why don't anybody talk about it or write about it? We will continue our studies in the same way. Now there is chaos in Iraq and our exporters have difficulties. If no war had occurred, our exports with Iraq would have been 3 billion dollars in 2003 and 4 billion dollars in 2004.
Tuzmen said that they could only export one billion dollars of products to Iraq this year, adding that ''but we can't give up Iraq market, we don't have such a luxury.''
Tuzmen stated that the key of Iraq was Turkey, adding ''we tried to help Iraqi people by sending food during the war.'' Tuzmen said that the aim was to increase the gross national product of the Middle East people, adding that ''we will try to make those people benefit from education and health services. You can't overcome the difficulties if you can't prevent poverty. This region had to become rich.''
(Öª-AÖ) 11.12.2003