Erdogan in Egypt Among Former Ottoman Sultans

"LandepNews"

Erdogan in Egypt Among Former Ottoman Sultans

Political journey of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Egypt turned to business on Wednesday as Turkey promised Egypt to triple trade and investment in the north African country within four years and signed ambitious energy agreements.
In an address in a hall where hundreds of Turkish and Egyptian businessmen were gathered, in a hotel in central Cairo, Erdogan promised that the trade between Turkey and Egypt will reach the amount of $10 billion. Turkish investment in Egypt should thus increase to $5 billion from the current $1.5 billion.
Turkey is trying to boost its influence in the region by investing in the major, though still destabilized economy of Egypt, and wants to recover the losses suffered by the toppling of the Libyan regime and by the downgrading of economic relations with Israel.
By binging investments to $10 billion, Turkey could afford to lose the $1.5 billion investment of Israelis in their economy.
That is why he “stormed” Egypt with a delegation of 280 business people, who were said by the economy minister in a press statement on Wednesday evening to have signed $853 million of deals, including construction deals. The minister said that two Turkish companies made bids for defense contracts with Egypt by about $500 million. One is to build landing craft and the other to modernize helicopters.
The economy minister said that the former Egyptian regime was envious of Turkey but that the new one was more enthusiastic about signing contracts with the Turks. He announced that the signing of these contracts brought with it the lifting of visa requirement to visit Turkey, a policy Turkey has been applying to all the countries that are connected with it somehow, in a wish to create a space of interrelation between the nations in its influence zone, and the removing of import duties for agricultural products.
In a reasoning combining economic and religious motives, the minister said that if the European chicken should have zero duty when it enters Turkey, why should the Muslim chicken be taxed?

Erdogan's Welcome to Egypt

Turkish business community manifested interest in the business opportunity offered by the Arab spring, which opened the Egyptian market to cooperation with Ankara. The Turks are also willing to extend the cooperation in fields like steel industry, where they are very good, but had no opportunity to show it in Egypt, because Mubarak had imposed some sort of monopoly on steel.
The plan for energy network comprises countries in southern Mediterranean like Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, Libya, Turkey and Egypt who already signed it and is part of a broader cooperation in the region that includes visa liberation and energy and transports agreements.
Turkey wants to increase the number of suppliers with energy, from five that supply it with natural gases and 11 with oil. Turkey invited on Monday Egypt to become a serious supplier of natural gas.
All these accomplishments show that Turkish leaders are serious about their intention to downgrade economic relations with Israel. From that perspective, can be understood the words of the commerce minister who said last week that economic ties with Tel Aviv would not be frozen yet: they had to prepare an alternative first.

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