ANKARA - Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said on Monday that Turkey would organize the ''Silk Road Foreign Trade Ministers' Conference'' aiming to develop regional cooperation projects including China soon.
Speaking in a news conference on the end of the Silk Road Turkish Export Products Fair, Tuzmen said that such a fair was held on a train for the first time in the world and it continued for 39 days.
Tuzmen stated that the fair was open to visitors in Tabriz, Tehran and Meshed cities of Iran; Ashkabat city of Turkmenistan; Dushanbe city of Tajikistan, Almaty and Astana cities of Kazakhstan and 70,000 people visited the fair.
Stressing that the project would speed up Strategy of Turkey's Neighbors and Regional Countries, Tuzmen said that Turkey's trade with countries which are on the Silk Road increased by 58 percent last year, the projects which Turkish contractors undertook in those countries exceeded 12 billion dollars and the investments exceeded 4 billion dollars.
Tuzmen stressed that those developments were pleasing, but not enough, adding that ''time has come to put into practice the common trade, energy, transportation and investment projects which will help development of all regional countries under the leadership of Turkey.''