Turkish President Erdogan returns after completing Pakistan tour
Last updated on: 15 February,2020 11:57 am
Pakistan wants to boost business ties with Turkey: PM Imran
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday left for his home country after completing a two-day official visit to Pakistan to enhance bilateral relations between both countries.
Pakistan Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have vowed to boost bilateral trade ties in order to strengthen the friendship between both the countries. Pakistan and Turkey have signed 13 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) which would be the start of new era.
PM Imran said: “Turkey has not only supported Pakistan on Kashmir issue but also on the issue of Finance Action Task Force (FATF)." “I had asked Erdogan, he would clean sweep if he contested elections in Pakistan.”
Speaking on the occasion, Turkish President Erdogan thanked Pakistan for warm welcome and said that he was happy to visit Pakistan after three years.
“I consider Pakistan my second home,” Erdogan said and added Turkey will always standby Pakistan. He also thanked PM Imran and the authorities for the hospitality.
On the other hand, addressing the Pakistan-Turkey Business Forum, PM Imran Khan has invited Turkish business community to invest in different sectors of Pakistan especially tourism, mining and agriculture. He pointed out that Pakistan has a huge untapped potential in tourism including in beach and historic places. The PM said Pakistan can greatly benefit from the Turkish experience in the development of necessary infrastructure for the promotion of tourism. He said Pakistan also desires to learn from the experiences of Turkey in the fields of agriculture and mining. Imran Khan further assured to fully facilitate Turkish business community including their joint ventures with Pakistani companies. He expressed the confidence that the business communities of both the countries will come forward to benefit from the excellent political relationship that exists between the two countries.
Speaking to the participants of the forum, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to take Pak-Turkey bilateral trade volume to one billion dollars in the first phase and eventually to five billion dollars later. He said there is vast scope for increasing the current two way trade volume of 800 million dollars. He said we want to take the commercial relations between the two brotherly countries to the same level as political ties. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the two countries can collaborate in a number of industries for their mutual benefit. He said we should not allow protectionism or trade walls between us. The Turkish president said his country is increasing investments in Pakistan. Turkey is one of the top twenty economies of the world. We have brought down our debt from 72 percent of GDP to 33 percent, he told.