Wednesday, December 8th 2010Turkey seeks to increase investment in Iraq
Cairo, A senior adviser for the Turkish President Abdullah Gul said that Turkey is ready to assist Iraq in various fields, especially in reconstruction related works, expressing his country's desire to increase investments in Iraq.
Arshad Hormozlo told AKnews today, at the end of his visit to the Arab League in Cairo, "Turkey wishes all the best for Iraq and would like to see a stable, unified and sovereign Iraq."
He pointed out that Turkey was still of the few countries that have not closed their embassies in Iraq during all the times of the crises, but opened general consulates in Mosul and Basra.
“We want to increase our investments in all parts of Iraq." He said
regarding the rail way projects extend between Turkey and Iraq, Hormozlo said that there are 50 agreements for cooperation and economic integration between Turkey and Iraq. We welcome our brothers from the various Iraqi sects in Turkey to consult with the Turkish business men about starting investments in Iraq."
He said that "the stability of Iraq and the upswing of the Iraqi individuals is very important for us.” Thus “the rail network is a very important issue in communication, not in the field of passenger transportations only, but for the activities of large economic and market transportations."
The Turkish consulate in Basra opened on Oct.31 last year by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmed Davutoglu, through which confirmed Ankara’s attention on Iraq’s; as well as it opened two consulates in Erbil and Mosul.
Iraq signed several economic agreements with Turkey aimed at consolidating trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. 117 Turkish companies work on implementing projects related to energy, agriculture and industry developments.
The outgoing Iraqi government announced on Oct. 19 to form a committee for activating the trade and economic relations with Turkey.
The Turkish Minister of Trade, Thafar Jaglayan, said earlier that he expects that the volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey for this year will be more than $ 7 billion.
http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/2/200892/
