Within the scope of Turkey’s Africa Initiative, the country’s trade volume
with the continental countries increased by six-fold in the last 15 years,
reaching $17.5 billion.
Turkey’s 15-year Africa Initiative Policy has increased economic
cooperation, while also bringing political relations to the next level.
The experience of Turkish businesspeople has been transferred to the region
and it has contributed to the development of African countries.
Economic relations have been diversified with a “win-win”
approach.
 |
In this period, Turkey signed 45 commercial and economic cooperation
agreements with the African countries, increasing the number of agreements for
the reciprocal protection of investments from six to 26.
While Turkish direct investments in Africa were $100 million in 2003, they
reached $6.5 billion in 2017.
Turkish entrepreneurs provided employment to 78,000 people throughout the
continent and the volume of the projects carried out by the Turkish contracting
companies exceeded $55 billion.
The number of continental embassies rose from 12 in 2003 to 41 in 2017, when
the African Expansion Policy was initiated.
Turkish Airlines’ (THY) flight traffic reached 52 destinations in 33 countries
on the continent.
While political relations have been raised to a higher level, President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has paid more than 30 visits to 28 African countries as
both prime minister and president in the last 10 years.
Turkish businesspeople underlined that Eximbank’s increased loans to Africa
will improve the work efficiency of Turkish banks opening branches in countries
where projects are intensive.
They also emphasized the importance
of the projects undertaken by Turkish entrepreneurs in the continent in terms
of establishing mutual trust.
The heads of state and presidents are expected to attend the summit planned
in Turkey, while the meeting is envisaged to contribute to the emergence of the
continent’s economic potential.
