Expedition to the Gulf from Erdogan: 200 businessmen will accompany

AKP President and Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) next week. Erdogan, who will take 200 businessmen with him, will meet with the leaders of the Arab countries that border the Persian Gulf. During the negotiations, it is planned to sign some trade agreements and cooperations.

Erdogan is said to expect to invest up to $30 billion in Turkey’s energy, infrastructure and defense sectors during his July 17-19 visits.

ERDOGAN: WE HOPE TO DO IT

Speaking to reporters on the plane back from the NATO summit in Vilnius, Erdogan assessed his visit to the Gulf countries next week.

Erdoğan said:

“We are hopeful in this visit. I sent my friends ahead of time. They visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates. We will go with a delegation. We would like to further strengthen all kinds of relationships between us by traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

During the preliminary visits, our friends gave some information. During our visit, we will have the opportunity to see and personally experience the support they will provide to Turkey. They said so themselves in my previous interviews. “We are ready to make serious investments in Türkiye.” Hopefully, we’ll wrap this up with this visit. These investments may be in us, perhaps in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates.”

200 IRAN ENTREPRENEURS

Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) Chairman Nail Olpak said they will be included in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s tour of the Gulf consisting of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a trade caravan. giant made up of more than 200 entrepreneurs.

DEİK will organize a business forum in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with the participation of President Erdogan as part of the Gulf tour. The Saudi Arabia-Turkey Business Forum will take place on July 17 in Jeddah, the Qatar-Turkey Business Forum on July 18 in Doha and the UAE-Turkey Business Forum on July 19 in Abu Dhabi.

HOW MANY COMPANIES HAVE BEEN FOUNDED IN 10 YEARS?

According to the compilation by SÖZCÜ from the statistics of established and closed companies of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), investors from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia established a total of 5,308 companies in Turkey. between January 2013 and May 2023. Of the founders of these companies, 3,206 have passports from Saudi Arabia, 1,425 from the United Arab Emirates and 677 from Qatar.

According to the data, which includes 100 percent foreign capital or joint ventures with domestic companies, in the first 5 months of 2023, the Saudis established 44 companies with a total capital of 56.67 million lira.

In the January-May period, entrepreneurs from the United Arab Emirates established 74 companies with a total capital of 25,563,000. The Qataris, on the other hand, set up 18 companies with a capital of 111 million lira.

INVESTING IN ENERGY AND DEFENSE SECTORS

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are expected to invest in the energy and defense sectors, Reuters reported from two sources close to the matter.

After the elections, the authorities of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia began to establish contacts for direct investment in the energy and defense sectors in Turkey.

One of the sources said: “As has been discussed before, there will be some direct investment, especially from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. They were interested in some fields, especially energy, they were waiting for the election results. Now, contacts have started to pick up on this,” she said.

The sources said it is not clear when the deals can be signed, what kind of schedule potential investments will be implemented and how big they will be.

The other source said: “In the coming period, money inflows are expected, especially in the Gulf region. There are several contacts at this address. The interest of international investors has increased. He also had some high-level contacts in Türkiye. There will be some inflows from these investors in the next period,” he said.

LOOKING FOR MONEY

President Tayyip Erdoğan changed economic management after the elections and declared that he accepted the change of direction in interest policy.

It is known that the priority of Yılmaz and Şimşek, who were appointed to economic management after the elections, is to provide inflows of foreign hot money to the Turkish economy, which is experiencing difficult times due to high current account deficit and low reserves.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement on a television program he attended on May 25, just before the second round of the elections, pointing to money coming from the Gulf, saying: “There were countries that deposited money from the Gulf into our system . This inevitably relieved our Central Bank and our market, albeit for a short time”.