H.E. AMBASSADOR SELÇUK ÜNAL’S SPEECH
THE 2025 LAND-SEA CORRIDOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FORUM
(13 November 2025, Chongqing)

H.E. Yuan Jiajun, Secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee,
Distinguished Provincial and Municipal Leaders,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning, (Şang Wu Hao)

I would like to thank the Chongqing Municipality and the relevant Chinese authorities for their invitation to this event. It is a great pleasure for me to address you here in Chongqing.

Being my first visit to the city, I am impressed by its size and level of development. Chongqing is at a scale of a medium size country in Europe.

As a reflection of the developing bilateral ties between Türkiye and the People’s Republic of China, we opened our General Consulate in Chengdu in June 2023. This is our first consular representation in Central and Western China and fourth overall. Also covering Chongqing, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, our Consulate General is ready for new partnerships.
With a trade volume of over 48 billion US Dollars (2024) China is Türkiye’s largest trading partner in Asia and third largest in the world. Our bilateral trade volume increased 30-fold in the last two decades. Yet, our economic relations are still far behind its potential.

While we work on increasing our trade volume on the basis of mutual respect and interests, we should also aim our trade to be more balanced and fair. In this regard, we encourage more Chinese companies to invest in Türkiye. In fact, the number of Chinese companies currently operating in Türkiye has exceeded 1,000. As a foreign-investment friendly country, many Chinese companies perceive Türkiye as a regional hub. We call other investors to follow their lead.

Dear guests,

At the invitation of Chinese President H.E. Xi Jinping, H.E. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited China from 31 August to 1 September to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tianjin. The meeting between the two leaders shed light on the future of Türkiye-China relations and reinforced the political will for further deepening our cooperation.

One of the most important common understandings that they reached was to increase the harmony between the Middle Corridor Initiative of Türkiye and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China.

The Middle Corridor is of strategic importance. It starts from Türkiye, crosses the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and the Central Asian Republics and reaches China. Together with the BRI, the Middle Corridor could provide uninterrupted and much speedier access to the Black Sea and Mediterranean basins, as well as to Europe, Middle East and Africa.

We were glad to witness that regular freight transport services via the Middle Corridor on the China-Türkiye-Europe railway route, were launched with the participation of the Deputy Minister of Transport of Türkiye in July 2025 in Chongqing and Chengdu. The train reached İstanbul in only 15 days.

The legal framework of the Middle Corridor is also strengthened. In this regard, a framework agreement on “All Links of the International Supply Chain of the Middle Corridor” and a cooperation agreement on “the Middle Corridor International Procurement Center” were signed between Pasifik Global Lojistik and Yuxinou (Chongqing) Logistics last summer, respectively in İstanbul and Chongqing. We will explore and promote the establishment of an international procurement center for the "Middle Corridor" in Chongqing.

We wish to continue our collaboration in order to further develop transport and connectivity between our countries, whether by land, sea, air or rail.

Bilateral and high level exchanges certainly play an important role. Turkish Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure H.E. Enver İskurt attended the North Bund Forum in Shanghai last month (19 October). He also traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese railway institutions.
H.E. Ye Niuping, Mayor of Xi'an, attended the Xi'an-Türkiye Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Istanbul and emphasized the need to accelerate harmonization between the Middle Corridor Initiative and BRI.

In terms of air connectivity, weekly passenger flights between our countries recently increased from 21 to 49 frequencies. We can therefore say the ancient Silk Road is also being strengthened by air. We hope more Chinese guests will benefit from this logistical advantage to visit Türkiye.

I wish the 2025 Land-Sea Corridor Economic Development Forum every success!

Thank you! (Şie Şie)