Turkey ready to enter SL on a large scale

As its bilateral trade with Sri Lanka topped $ 191 Million with strong signs of renewed trade, Turkey, globally renowned for its construction dominance and predicted to be the fast grower in it by 2020, is readying to partner in Sri Lankan construction sector in a big way.

“Turkey has one of the largest construction industries in the world. It is also ranked second after China in terms of largest construction companies of the World. The share of the construction sector in the Turkish economy is almost 30%” revealed ?skender K. Okyay, Ambassador of Turkey to Sri Lanka on 09 February. Okyay revealed this to Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce on 09 February during his courtesy call on Minister Bathiudeen at the Ministry premises in Colombo 3.

“We are highly encouraged by Turkey’s entry to our construction sector. We invite Turkish expertise and draw your attention especially to our tourism infrastructure; the requirements are from boutique to star class. We are currently on a drive to complete 40,000 additional hotel rooms to cater to rapidly rising tourist numbers”, Minister Bathiudeen added “We are ready to partner in Sri Lankan infrastructure projects considerably. To this end, about 25 large construction firms in Turkey are already looking to enter Sri Lanka and expressed their interest.

As a first step, they want to form Turkey-Sri Lanka Economic Council in Istanbul” added Okyay who previously served as Minister-Counselor in Berlin (2010-’13) after serving as the Head of Department of Economic Affairs (Eastern Europe) with the Turkish Foreign Ministry (2009-’10).

“We are experts in construction of roads, buildings and pipelines, including fuel and gas” Okyay added.

Also, in strong signs of renewal of trade cooperation between the historic trade partners, both Minister Bathiudeen and Okyay discussed tourism cooperation and more importantly, the future direction of bilateral trade and cooperation and to this end, delved on matters related to the groundwork required for the first session of the Sri Lanka-Turkey Joint Committee to be held in Turkey in the first half of 2013 (the exact dates of which, to be mutually agreed).According to the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka, a large untapped market exists in Turkey for sweet biscuits, tobacco glass bottles, cargo vessels, tea extracts, diamonds, cloves, and animal feed preparations, among others.

The value of total trade turnover has increased from US$ 97.4 Mn in 2005 to US $ 190.57 Mn in 2012 -a massive increase of 95.66% compared to 2005.

The balance of trade has been in favour of Sri Lanka during last 8 years, which has increased from US$ 14.7 million in 2005, to US$ 88.39 Million in 2012.