The head of one of many prime Türkiye’s business associations evaluated on Sunday latest contacts with officers in neighboring Syria, conveying they’d a “very productive” go to that coated a number of conferences and talks on commerce, investments and what can mutually be performed on this regard.
“There is no concretness, ‘in terms we signed that agreement,’ but clear issues were discussed, and in this respect I find the visit quite concrete,” stated Nail Olpak, head of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK).
Olpak, together with Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, was half of a big business delegation that visited Damascus earlier this week. Following two-day contacts in Syria and the primary high-profile go to by a Turkish financial official for the reason that fall of Bashar Assad, Olpak evaluated the go to and the talks they held with the press.
Pointing to the significance of this go to after the formation of the brand new Syrian authorities, Olpak talked about that they initially met with Syrian Economy Minister Nidal al-Shaar.
The new transitional authorities in Syria was introduced late in March by Syria interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, marking an additional step in push to rebuild war-torn nation after years of crippling sanctions and lack of funding.
“When we list the expectations of the business world, there is the side of bilateral trade, which is relatively the easier part. Since he is also the minister of industry, we also discussed the investment side. It is important to be realistic, and investments should be considered in the short, medium and long term,” Olpak defined.
“Investment is not something that will quickly yield returns from today to tomorrow. Yes, there is potential in Syria, but we need to realize that time is needed,” he added.
“In this regard, we discussed what we could do mutually. Of course, for trade and investment to be possible, their transportation, that is, logistics, needs to be secured. In this context, we met with Syrian Minister of Transport Yarub Suleyman Badr. There is land, sea and air transportation involved in this. We discussed what could be done with the minister in this regard,” Olpak furthered.
Moreover, the DEIK head famous that the Syrian minister talked about that they don’t wish to function a few of their ports and related enterprises and are prepared for cooperation with these .
“I think this is one of the areas that can be entered quickly, because ‘you’re not discussing a brand-new investment; you’re discussing an existing, idle, non-operational business,'” he stated.
Olpak additionally identified that there are areas in Türkiye, comparable to sure elements of the textile business, the place there are unused capacities, they usually mentioned whether or not it will be doable to deliver them to Syria.
Emphasizing the necessity for the banking sector to be current and performance in Syria for commerce to happen, Olpak stated: “To be able to trade, you need to be able to transfer money and establish the rules of trade law. We had a clear conversation on this matter with Syrian Finance Minister Mohamed Yasser Barnia.”
“Following this, we have expectations for two separate laws: one, the ‘Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement,’ and the other, the ‘Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement.’ We said, ‘Once these are in place, the business world will know what to do,'” stated Olpak.
Moreover, he talked about they’d “a very important meeting” with land and sea ports chief Kuteybe Ahmed Badawi.
“We had the opportunity to discuss what is happening at the customs gates. In this regard, it was a very productive visit. There was no concrete statement like ‘We signed this agreement,’ but clear topics were discussed, and in this regard, I find the visit very concrete. We did not return saying, ‘We signed an agreement,’ but we returned with a very good infrastructure. We will follow up on the process,” he said.
Olpak additionally talked about one other challenge regarding DEIK, specifically their work with business councils.
“Our Türkiye-Syria Business Council needs to designate its Syrian counterpart, and we conveyed this, and they agreed with us. They said they would designate our counterpart as soon as possible. This was one of the very concrete steps for DEIK,” he added.
Olpak additionally defined that some areas have the potential for fast progress, saying: “We can move trade quite quickly, but we need to know that investments will take some time. Some investments, especially those that are idle and non-operational here, can be quickly activated, and we could bring similar ones from Türkiye here, but for an investment that will be built from scratch, certain things need to be in place first.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com