CAIRO - Environment Minister Kursad Tuzmen said on Monday that free trade agreement on which negotiations have been continuing since 1998 should be signed to further improve commercial relations between Turkey and Egypt.
Tuzmen who came to Cairo on Sunday with an accompanying delegation including 100 businessmen upon invitation of Egyptian Foreign Trade Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali attended in a meeting which aims to inform businessmen about commercial relations between the two countries.
Association of Egyptian Businessmen Chairman Adel Gazanin, Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Trade representative A. Sattar Eshrah, Turkish Ambassador in Cairo Korkmaz Haktanir, Trade Consultant Feridun Baser and Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) Egyptian Business Council Chairman Gokcen Odyak attended the meeting.
Official said that Boutros-Ghali could not participate in the meeting since Egyptian government was holding meetings due to extraordinary developments in Iraq crisis.
Delivering a speech at opening of the meeting, Tuzmen said that trade volume between the two countries was not sufficient and stated that if Turkey and Egypt signed free trade agreement, commercial relations between the two countries would be further improved.
Tuzmen said that they wanted talks over free trade agreement to be held in May and stated that Turkey and Egypt had many complementary products.
Stating that several Turkish companies made investment in Egypt, he said that but they had some problems on trademark registration and production permit. Tuzmen added that those problems should be solved to increase investment.
Tuzmen added that Turkish contracting services sector could undertake initiatives in many infrastructure and superstructure projects in Egypt.
(EÖ-AÖ) 17.03.2003