Black Sea Economic Cooperation Marks 13th Anniversary Of Its Foundation

ANKARA - The Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) marks the 13th anniversary of its foundation.
The BSEC project emerged in the atmosphere stemming from the rapid changes in eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin and Caucasus and the integration process in Europe in 1980s.
Turkey developed the project by assessing that atmosphere in 1990.
Upon invitation of Turkey, heads of state and government of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine signed the Istanbul Summit Declaration and adopted the Bosphorus Statement on June 25th, 1992 giving birth to the BSEC.
After participation of Serbia-Montenegro in April 2004, number of member countries rose to 12.
The Black Sea region constitutes the heartland. The whole landmass has always been at the cross of East-West, North-South routes. There civilizations emerged, prospered and disappeared shaping diverse peoples, cultures, reforms and ideas in the flow of a long history, going back millennia to the Paleolithic and Caleolithic ages.
The BSEC has an area nearly 20 million square kilometers, and a population of about 350 million.
The organization has a foreign trade capacity of over 300 billion USD annually.
After the Gulf, it has the second largest source of oil and natural gas.
The BSEC emerged as a regional cooperation organization in the beginning.
The Yalta Summit of the Heads of State and Government convened on June 5th, 1998 and signed the BSEC Charter. Following the ratification formalities, the Charter came into force marking the official inauguration of the BSEC on May 1st, 1999.
On February 25th, 1993, BSEC Parliamentary Assembly was formed.
The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank was established on June 1st, 1999 to provide the necessary banking and finance services to the member states.
Cooperation areas of the BSEC are commercial and economic development, banking and finance, communication, transportation, agriculture, protection of environment, tourism, science and technology, exchange of statistical information, and fight against illicit drug trafficking, weapon and radioactive substance smuggling, illegal migration, organized crimes and all kinds of acts of terrorism.
Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Egypt, Poland, Slovakia and Tunisia attend BSEC meetings as observer.