ALEPPO - Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Naji al-Utri called Turkey on Monday to make investments in Syria.
Utri told A.A correspondent that economic and political developments, which were continuing rapidly between Turkey and Syria, were pleasing. He said that he believed the recent visit of Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen to Aleppo with 400 businessmen, 33 deputies, six governors and many press members contributed to further development of the relations between two countries.
Noting that trade volume between Turkey and Syria has reached nearly one billion U.S. dollars, but this figure was not enough, Utri said that they wanted to increase this figure to two billion dollars until the end of this year.
Utri said that Syria could easily provide transfer of Turkish products to Gulf and African countries and especially in the last two years Syria has made important legal changes to draw foreign capital, adding that they observed a significant increase in coming of foreign capital following those legal arrangements.
Noting that they saw important openings in Turkey's foreign policy recently, Utri said that they were following closely the commercial and economic relations which Turkey wanted to develop with its neighbors. He added that they observed with pleasure that Turkey wanted to develop commercial relations with Syria mutually within that scope.
Utri called Turkey to make investments in Syria and said that there were language, religion, culture and relative ties between Turkey and Syria. He added that they would provide every type of facility to Turkish businessmen in their investments to Syria. He said that now there were many Turkish businessmen in Aleppo and Damascus who made investments in Syria and they were increasing their investments each day.
(GC-AÖ) 31.05.2004