Türkiye-United Kingdom Joint Economic and Trade Committee

5 January 2024

Honourable Minister of Trade,

Honourable Minister of Trade of the United Kingdom,

Honourable President of DEİK,

Valued representatives of our business world,

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I respectfully greet you all.

Esteemed members of the committee,

As MÜSİAD, whether through the business trips we make or through our diplomatic and commercial contacts, we always devote intense effort to building new commercial relations and to strengthening our existing relations.

Today too we are holding the Seventh Term meeting of the Türkiye-United Kingdom Joint Economic and Trade Committee, which occupies a very important place in our bilateral commercial relations. As MÜSİAD, we have prepared a detailed report for the Seventh Term meeting. Our report, while addressing the trade between the two countries in general terms, also contains current developments and the identification of the problems that have arisen. Furthermore, it addresses the roles falling to both the Turkish side and the United Kingdom side in order to increase the volume of bilateral trade. In addition, our report also includes a summary of the main lines of each of the three previous Joint Economic and Trade Committee meetings and the media coverage of those meetings.

In our report, the Free Trade Agreement, foreign direct investments and especially Brexit come to the fore as priority agenda items.

The aim of this preparatory report is, of course, to make a humble contribution to the positive outcomes desired at the end of this meeting.

Esteemed guests,

As the United Kingdom and Türkiye, two commercial and economic powers, increase their cooperation activities, great economic gains will emerge for both countries.

The United Kingdom, a very important trading partner of our country, holds a very important place in the foreign trade of Türkiye. The trade volume between the two countries stood at the level of USD 18.9 billion in the year 2022. In the January-October period of the year 2023, Türkiye's exports to the United Kingdom decreased by %6.6 and fell to USD 10.2 billion. In the same period Türkiye's imports from the United Kingdom rose by %12.4 to the level of USD 5.4 billion.

According to the data of the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT), in the 2002-2022 period the total of the direct investments made in our country by firms with United Kingdom capital amounts to USD 13 billion 479 million. In the same period the total of the direct investments made in the United Kingdom by firms with Turkish capital was USD 3 billion 605 million.

We believe that the commercial contacts of our country with the United Kingdom will increase much further in the periods ahead and will reach better levels. On this matter our efforts to raise commercial diplomacy to the highest levels through our MÜSİAD Representative Office located in the United Kingdom will always continue.

Dear friends,

As I conclude my remarks here, I wish that this meeting may be a means to good outcomes for both countries. I greet you all with my most sincere feelings…

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD