Rustam Minnikhanov meets Minister of Economy of Turkey Nihat Zeybekci

On October 21, at the Kazan Kremlin, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov had a meeting with Minister of Economy of Turkey Nihat Zeybekci, who arrived in Tatarstan to take part in 15th meeting of the Mixed Inter-governmental Russian-Turkish Commission on Trade-and-Economic Cooperation.

Welcoming the Turkish guests in Kazan, Minnikhanov reminded that the Tatarstan delegation took part in the Izmir International Exhibition in August this year. Tatarstan President expressed his confidence that the agreements reached during the exhibition will contribute to further development of business contacts between Tatarstan and Turkey.

Minnikhanov thanked Nikhat Zeibekzhi for choosing Kazan as the venue to hold the meeting of the inter-governmental commission. "We will do our utmost to hold the event at a high level. I am sure that the meeting of the commission will contribute to strengthening relations between the two countries,"  Minnikhanov said.

He expressed deep appreciation to the leadership of the Republic of Turkey for the attention paid to cooperation with Tatarstan. Our republic also attaches great importance to the development of relations with Turkey, Minnikhanov said.

He said that Turkish companies have invested more than two billion US dollars in Tatarstan. Ten Turkish plants are successfully operating in the country, work in this area is underway.

Moreover, Minnikhanov noted successful interaction in such areas as power engineering, machine-building and automotive industry, high technology, construction, woodworking, health-care, agriculture and other spheres.

According to Tatarstan President, Gebze, one of the largest industrial zones in Turkey, is ready to act as an operator for the development of the Sviyazhsky multimodal complex and special economic zones located in Tatarstan.

He continued that the Turkish Gemont Company is taking part in the construction of a plant of TAIF-NK Company for deep processing of oil to be launched this year.

“Tatarstan is interested in the Turkish business developing its projects in our republic. We will provide our partners overall support," Minnikhanov said.

In his turn Nihat Zeybekci noted that the trade turnover between Turkey and Tatarstan exceeded 900 million US dollars in 2010, but today this figure is 200 million US dollars. “You know that the leaders of our countries agreed on bringing the trade turnover between Russia and Turkey to 100 billion US dollars. Tatarstan has the necessary potential to achieve these goals. I am ready to assist you on any issues and to help you in the implementation of our joint projects," he said.