By Selale Kadak
As the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) won't always lobby in countries trying to hinder Turkey's European Union bid, this time it went to Spain, an always-friendly country. Right now TUSIAD head Arzuhan Yalcindag and her team is extremely busy. The European Commission will release its new progress report on Turkey in November. Until then, Yalcindag and her team will pay intensive one-day visits to capital cities of friendly countries and try to ensure that the voices of countries favoring us are better heard. In Spain, Yalcindag was accompanied by her deputies Pekin Baran and Umit Boyner, Board Of Directors members Ali Kibar, Bulent Akgerman, and Haluk Dincer and the association's foreign poliicy advisor Soli Ozel.
Everybody worked hard and the entire team learned about political and commercial ties between Spain and Turkey. Meanwhile, Kibar told stories about interesting incidents in exports from Turkey to other countries, mostly to Spain. After all, TUSIAD was to be received by Spanish King Juan Carlos for the first time. Yalcindag heard out her team's views on messages to be given and the support to be requested. Meanwhile, Kibar wanted the team to relax and told them some stories about Spanish history in order give them a lift, after holding intensive meetings for 67 hours and long flights. TUSIAD's secretariat also did its homework very well. The TUSIAD team arranged meetings with important people in Madrid, except for former Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was in the US that day, with the support of the CEOEF, TUSIAD's Spanish counterpart. Yalcindag and her team first met with Spanish Economy Minister Pedro Solbes and then State Secretary for EU Relations Alberto Navarro. Immediately after these meetings, the Turkish team met with representatives from the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organization (CEOE) during lunch. Then the delegation met with the opposition People's Party spokesman Eduardo Zaplana and spent half an hour with Spanish King Juan Carlos in a very warm atmosphere. Turkish Ambassador to Spain Ender Arat accompanied the delegation during all these meetings.
Spain openly supports Turkey's EU membership. Soli Ozel mentioned the reason for this as it has some interest in it and Spain wants to strengthen its investments with Turkey. The Spanish government not only put Turkey on its list of 11 priority countries in terms of commerce and investment, but also put aside _353 million to be used for promotion and support projects through 2009 to help Spanish firms in Turkey. I think the size of this figure can be better appreciated it we consider that Spain's budget for South Korea, which is among the 11 countries, totals _7 million. In addition, let me say that the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Brazil, China, India, Russia and Japan are also among these 11 countries.
Commercial ties between Turkey and Spain have been grown a lot in recent years. Arat said that at the moment the trade surplus totaled $800 million in favor of Turkey. The trade volume between the two countries totaled _2.3 billion in 2001, and by last year this ballooned 274% to reach _6.3 billion. According to data from the first half of this year, Spain ranks fifth in Turkey's exports and 10th in Turkey's imports.