ANKARA - A Turkish minister denied on Monday any new trade agreement with Russia.
Turkey's State Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said that Turkey and Russia had not reached any deal on recent trade problems.
"We have not signed a protocol in our recent talks because the proposed conditions were impossible to accept," Yazici told reporters after his meeting with Minister of Economy & Foreign Trade Jeannot Krecke of Luxembourg in Ankara.
Yazici said executives from Turkey and Russia would have a meeting in the Russian capital of Moscow on September 15th and 16th.
On relations with Luxembourg, Yazici said that this country made 1.7 billion USD of foreign investments in Turkey since 2002.
"But we want to see more Luxembourgian companies in Turkey," he said.
The Turkish minister asked Krecke to contribute to simplification of visa procedures for Turkish businessmen, and said transportation was another problem Turkish businessmen were facing not only in Luxembourg, but also in many European Union (EU) member states.
Yazici expressed hope that Krecke would help lift obstacles before Turkish businessmen.
The Turkish minister said that Turkey was hosting regional offices of many global companies including Coca Cola, JP Morgan, Microsoft and General Electric.
"It has clearly be seen in the globalizing world that EU candidate Turkey is connecting the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia with the European market and enabling entry to these markets," Yazici said.
Yazici also said that Turkish economy was on its own producing one-third of the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Central and Eastern Europe.
"Turkey is also meeting 60 percent of industrial product exports of the Middle East and North Africa," he said.
Also, Krecke said that he was visiting Turkey with 60 businessmen, which he defined as a fairly great figure for a small country like Luxembourg.
Krecke said that this was the indicator Luxembourg was attaching to relations with Turkey, and also said that the two countries could make joint investments in particularly iron and automotive industry.
The Luxembourgian minister said Turkey would be an important partner of the EU in the future, and highlighted importance of speeding up Turkey's EU membership process.
(BRC)
(ECO)