The Minister, commenting on trade and economic relations between our countries at RIA Novosti's request, called them "very impetuous." "This year we will reach the mark of $10 billion, and may even exceed it a little. It is opportune to say here that a year ago the respective figure was just over $6 billion. To be sure, to a certain extent this is linked with the structure of our trade when the gas supplies make up 70% of it," he said.
Viktor Khristenko stressed that our partners hold ambitious views on the prospects of bilateral trade and economic relations. Ankara counts on doubling the goods turnover within the next two-three years.
"It should be admitted that $10 billion is a big figure. Added to it should be the so-called non-organised trade whose sum total is of the order of $3.5 billion, plus $1.5 billion which Russian tourists leave in Turkey, and the sum total of the construction services rendered by the Turkish companies in Russia. Today the sum total of the contract works which are done in Russia in the past 8 years amounts to $14 billion about $9 billion worth of which have already been completed. If all these figures are taken into account, today trade already amounts to about $16 billion," the Minister pointed out.
As he noted, the two countries are now working to ensure that their cooperation would be not confined to trade but would embrace the spheres of services and investments. "We have a stake in investment projects on Turkey's territory both in the privatisation process and in other forms of investments. In the gas sector these are gas distribution, underground gas storages, and transportation to third countries, as well as work on the question of building a gas-liquefying plant on the Mediterranean coast," he went on to say.
The Minister said that the representatives of Gazprom and its Turkish partner - Botas company will sign a memorandum on this question on Monday.
As Viktor Khristenko noted, the Russian side is interested in cooperation in the electricity sphere. "Today we discussed interaction in the nuclear power sector. Turkey has its own long-term programme for development of the nuclear power sector, including establishment of power-generating capacities. Time is ripe also to prepare the legal base of cooperation in this sphere," he said.
In the Minister's opinion, there exist interesting prospects for Russian machine-building, organisation of production of trucks in Turkey in particular. There are also interesting projects of cooperation in aviation, he added.
