ANKARA - Turkish and Swiss officials gathered in the Turkish capital, Ankara on Wednesday to discuss commercial and economic issues as well as bilateral commercial relations between the two countries.
Ulker Guzel, Deputy Undersecretary for Foreign Trade, represented Turkey in the meeting while the Swiss ambassador Monica Ruhl, head of Bilateral Economic Relations` Division of the Swiss State Secretariat for the Economy, attended the meeting on behalf of Switzerland.
Measures aiming to increase bilateral investments, problems concerning trade and cooperation opportunities in various areas such as standardization, industry, energy, environment, agriculture and health were discussed during the talks.
Officials also signed a protocol on the agreed issues after the meeting.
The legal framework between Turkey and Switzerland will be completed with the signing of an agreement on the prevention of double taxation on Thursday, within the scope of Turkish Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan`s visit to this country.
Such agreement is expected to provide a healthier environment for the activities of Turkish businessmen and speed up investments within a short period.
The trade volume between Turkey and Switzerland rose up to 6.2 billion USD in 2007. While Turkey`s exports to Switzerland reached 935 million USD the same year, imports from this country was around 5.2 billion USD.
During the first 3 months of 2008, the trade volume reached 2.6 billion USD with a 135 percent rise over the same period of 2007.
There are currently 418 Swiss firms operating in Turkey and their total capitals is nearly 4.4 billion USD. The total amount of investments of the 50 Turkish firms operating in Switzerland reach 115 million USD.
(DO-MS)