It is a privilege for
me to be here with you today at this important gathering.

First of all, I would
like to extend my heartfelt congratulations for this significant event and wish
every success to the China Overseas Investment Fair (COIFAIR).

There is no doubt that
the COIFAIR will provide fruitful results and open new horizons for Chinese
oversea investments.

I would like to start
my speech by bilateral relations between Turkey and China.

Although diplomatic
relations between Turkey and China were established in 1971 and both sides
elevated their ties to “strategic cooperative relations” as of 2010, these two
ancient civilizations enjoy deep rooted friendship and interaction for
centuries.

Today, Turkey and
China, once the Western and the Eastern gates of the ancient Silk Road, are
re-discovering each other, establishing a new model of partnership based on
mutual political trust, win-win cooperation and increased connectivity.

Thanks to the joint visions
and the directives of President Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Mr. Xi
Jinping, Turkish-Chinese strategic cooperative relations is strengthening in
all walks of life.

The determination of
both leaders to take this relationship to a new level has been well displayed
in recent years by several high level contacts. President Mr. Erdoğan and
President Mr. Xi met eight times in four years.

President Erdoğan’s
most recent visit to China on 2nd July 2019 was fruitful for enhancing cooperation
and consolidating our bilateral ties.

Under the guidance of
our leaders’ joint vision, we have begun to obtain the concrete results in our
bilateral relations. For instance, the Year 2018 was celebrated as Turkey
Tourism Year in China and more than 400 thousand Chinese tourists visited
Turkey in 2018, with a 60 % increase compared to the previous year.

Turkish and Chinese
airline companies weekly operate almost 50 flights between İstanbul, Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Taipei. Turkish Airlines is
also preparing to launch a new air route between İstanbul and Xi’an in December.

In this regard, I am
glad to state that Turkish-Chinese relations have been developing steadily.

The years 2020 and
2021 will mark respectively the 10th anniversary of the establishment of
strategic cooperative relations and the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic
relations between Turkey and China.

We are confident that
next decades will witness even closer ties between our two countries.

Economy is one of the
most important pillars of Turkish-Chinese bilateral ties.

Despite the
protectionist and unilateral policies of certain countries, I am happy to state
that like many other countries Turkey and China are in the same picture in
terms of free market economy and multilateralism.

Bilateral trade volume
between Turkey and China was 23,6 billion USD last year. However, our economic,
trade and investment potential is more than this figure. In order to realize
this potential, we expect more Chinese companies to invest in Turkey.

Turkey is one of the
most dynamic economies in the world.It
is certainly one of the most profitable places for doing business.

We have a high
economic growth trend.

Today, Turkey is the 18^th
largest economy of the worldand the 6^th largest economy when
compared with the EU countries.

Turkey’s GDP reached
to almost 800 (784) billion USD in 2018.

At this point I need
to underline that Turkey is the 13^th largest economy by GDP at PPP.

In the last decades, Turkey
registered very impressive economic development process.

Between 2002 and 2018
(for 16 years); the average growth rate was 5,5%.

A sound macroeconomic
strategy, prudent fiscal policies, and major structural reforms have all
contributed to the development of Turkey’s economy.

Turkey’s economic
growth has paved the way for emergence of a sizeable middle-class with an
increasing purchasing power.

Turkey has tripled
income per capita in the last 16 years.

In PPP terms, GDP per
capita exceeded 27 thousand USD in 2018.

Together with stable
economic growth, Turkey has also reined in its public finances; the EU-defined
general government nominal debt stock was recorded as 30,4% in 2018. Turkey has
been meeting the “EU’s 60 percent Maastricht criteria” for public debt stock
since 2004.

Similarly, the budget
deficit decreased less than 2 percent as a ratio to GDP, which is one of the EU
Maastricht criteria for the budget balance.

Turkey is natural
bridge between both East-West and North-South axes, thus creating an efficient
and cost-effective outlet to major markets. Within this framework, FDI stock in
Turkey reached 209 billion USD in the 2003-2018 period.

When we analyze the
FDI inflows by home country groups, Europe is at the first rank with 74%. Asia
follows as second, and American continent is at third rank. By observing the FDI
inflows by sectors, services has a great share by 60% .

Number of companies
with foreign capital in Turkey has reached almost 61.000 and it is increasing
day by day.

On the other hand,
number of companies with Chinese capital in Turkey is around 1000. It means
that the share of Chinese companies in foreign capital companies by number is
0,02%.

Turkey offers
significant opportunities for Chinese investors. In fact, Chinese companies
have already established successful businesses in sectors such as banking,
construction of power plants, infrastructure, IT, mining, agriculture and
transportation.

There are Chinese
giants who chose to invest in Turkey, such as, Huawei, ICBC, Bank of China,
ZTE, AVIC-International, Norinco, New Hope, Shanghai Electric, State Grid, Ali
Baba.

As Turkey, we hope to
see the name of your company in this slide sometime soon.

Turkey offers abundant
opportunities in a variety of sectors. Turkey welcomes investors from China for
projects related to infrastructure, seaport, airport, railway, subway, energy,
automobile, mechanical industry, banking and telecommunications.

I would like to
emphasize that our goal is to shift production to high-value and
high-technology products. In this respect, for the future of our relations, we
should also focus more on our cooperation in the fields of technology and
innovation.

In brief, both Turkey
and China are enthusiastic about working on new projects which will give a
boost to the bilateral economic relations and Turkey is looking forward to
seeing the concrete results of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Undoubtedly BRI is
another important aspect of Turkish-Chinese cooperation. As part of the Ancient
Silk Road, Turkey is happy to see the revival of it, this time under the Belt
and Road Initiative.

In fact Turkey’s
strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa makes it a
critical part of the Silk Road. Being a country on the western end of the
Ancient Silk Road, Turkey has long been working on projects to revive this
historical route.

Since the beginning,
Turkey has supported the BRI, which created a new area of strategic cooperation
for both countries.

President Erdoğan
attended the first International Forum of the BRI in May 2017, addressed the
Forum and reiterated Turkey’s strong support to initiatives that will integrate
the countries and peoples of Eurasia.

As it is well-known,
Turkey has proposed the Middle Corridor Initiative to contribute to the
large-scale connectivity of Asia and Europe.

The Middle Corridor is
an integrated connectivity project, including railways and other means of
transport, which follows the route from China to the Central Asian Republics,
crossing the Caspian Sea and coming to Turkey through Azerbaijan and Georgia. Both
the overland and maritime “Belt and Road”s various dimensions, such as
strengthening infrastructure capabilities, easing and expediting commercial
activities and establishing more efficient transportation corridors, correspond
with our initiative.

Today, Turkey and
China are working together to harmonize BRI and the Middle Corridor Initiative.

These initiatives created
a new area of strategic cooperation for Turkey and China and for our business
community.

We certainly believe that
the BRI, which is in line with Turkey’s “Silk Road Vision” and projects, will
open new windows of cooperation for all the countries in the region and beyond.

On the other hand, we
should note that Turkey is located at the heart of Eurasia. Turkey and the EU
are linked by Customs Union. Our country has an extensive Free Trade Agreements
network.

Since 1996, with its
EU Customs Union relationship, Turkish companies started to make their
production in accordance with the European Union standards.

Turkey has 27 Free
Trade Agreements with the African, Middle East, South American and Balkan
countries. That means the Chinese investors can use Turkey as a production hub
for reaching out to European markets and beyond.

Within 4 hours flight
from Istanbul you can reach to 1,5 billion people in 57 different countries in
Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Access to multiple markets
worth 24 trillion USD of GDP.

Moreover, with its
qualified labor force and competitive market place, Turkey has established
strategic partnerships towards European market. Now, Turkey is the 4th largest
trading partner of the European Union after; China, US and Russia.

Many international
companies are using Turkey as a production hub within this perspective.

We believe that
collaboration between Chinese and Turkish companies is essential for bolstering
the economic cooperation between our two countries. Therefore, we will continue
encouraging and supporting respective actors in this area to engage more and
more.

Thank you.