Turkey and Russia plan to boost their trade to $100 billion a year, Turkey’s Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci said.
“Our goal is to bring bilateral trade up to $100 billion a year. We can reach it in several years”, he explained.
According to the minister, issues of trade and economic relations between the two countries were in focus of a session on the Russian-Turkish intergovernmental commission in Istanbul on October 10-12.
Zeybekci said earlier that the two countries would be able to regain former dynamics of trade and economic cooperation when Russia lifted its ban on Turkish imports.
He said that Russia was an important country for Turkey as they were linked by serious relations in the economic sphere. The use of national currencies might help boost bilateral trade.
According to the Turkish ministry of economy, trade between the two countries stood at $24 billion in 2015 and at $11.2 billion in the eight months of 2016.
Russia imposed trade restrictions on Turkey following an incident with a Russian warplane that was downed by the Turkish air force in Syria on November 24, 2015. Thus, Russia banned imports of Turkish vegetables and fruits and restricted operation of Turkish companies. (TASS/Business World Magazine)