Distinguished Executives and Members
of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade,

Representatives of the Business
Community,

女士们，先生们，朋友们大家早上好，

很遗憾是以这样的方式和你们对话，希望我们能够早日战胜疫情，生活恢复往日平静，再一次和大家面对面进行交流。。。

我的中文就讲到这里，

As the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Beijing, I would like to thank the CCPIT for organizing
this important event. It is a pleasure for me to address you all.

Globally, we all have been witnessing very challenging times due to the pandemic. There’s no part of the world not affected by this massive health crisis, which had negative consequences for almost all business sectors.

On the other hand, we continue to admire the successful fight of the Chinese government and the people against the Covid-19 outbreak. We hope and wish that the rest of the world will be relieved from this infectious disease at the soonest time

Let me highlight this fact:

Turkish-Chinese solidarityin the fight against Covid-19 has been exemplary.

During the early days of the outbreak, Turkey demonstrated her solidarity with China by providing much-needed medical supplies. We are grateful that China reciprocated and offered similar assistance to Turkey when we were in need.

It is important to turn challenges into opportunities. The Covid-19 crisis led to an opportunityto improve our bilateral cooperation in the health sector. We hope to continue our collaboration in the same spirit, not only bilaterally but also across the multilateral fora, and remain committed to revitalizing all aspects of our relations.

Dear Guests,

Before Covid-19, there was a positive trend in terms of both Turkish exports to China and Chinese tourists visiting Turkey.

2018 was celebrated as “Turkish Tourism Year in China” and in 2019, with the increasing direct flight links between
our countries, we hosted a record number of Chinese tourist in Turkey, over 565,000.

We intend to revive this momentum in our economicand cultural ties.

We also aim to resume both ministerial and head-of-state-level visits, which reached record numbers in 2018 and 2019.

We would therefore be pleased to host His Excellency President Mr. Xi in Turkey in 2021, coinciding with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of our diplomatic relations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

According to the latest economic figures, China’seconomy is making speedy and fullrecovery from the pandemic.

In other words, Beijing now looks forward. So does Turkey. Our economic indicators for the post-pandemic era are promising.

Therefore, enhancing our economic cooperation with China is among our top priorities. Our bilateral trade volume, which was only 1.1 billion USD in 2001, increased to 21.1 billion USD in 2019. These numbers made China Turkey’s third biggest trade partner.

However, considering the enormous potential, this progress is clearly not sufficient.

I should also note that there is a serious imbalance in our bilateral tradevolume. In 2019, we imported 18.5 billion USDworth of products from China while exporting a mere 2.6 billion USD.

Our current bilateral trade deficit can be neutralized by increasing Turkish exports to Chinaand also by more Chinese investments in Turkey.

Chinese investments in Turkey will benefit from:

1. customs duty exemption,
2. corporate tax reduction,
3. land allocation,
4. and social security premium support.

While these are the main incentives, we provide “tailor made” investment incentives as well. In other words, we adapt them according to the nature of each investment and the requirement of each investor.

Let me also point out that Turkey has one of the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe and
investors can avoid it 100% if they are investing in some specific areas such as automotive, machinery and energy.

In addition to these incentives, Turkey’s strategic location, which is also important for the Belt and Road
Initiative, allows companies to benefitfrom her neighboring region as well.

Within four hours flight from Istanbul, one canreach to 1.5 billion people in 57 different countries in Europe, the Middle
East, North Africa and Central Asia.

Our brand new airport in Istanbul, one of the world’s biggest, has the capacity to accommodate 200 million passengers a year and is now a “Chinese Friendly Airport”. In other words,

1. Our Chinese friends can use Weibo, WeChat and WeChat Pay
2. Chinese speaking staff are available
3. Exclusive check-in areas are reserved for passengers arriving from China,
4. Flight announcements, information and ticket processing screensare also available in Chinese

So, bon voyage!

Dear participants,

Some of the well-known Chinese companies, such as Huawei, ICBC, Bank of China, ZTE, AVIC-International, Norinco, New Hope, Shanghai Electric, State Grid and Ali Baba have already established successful businesses in Turkey.

These examples are all success stories and they can easily be multiplied.

On the other hand, we believe that high quality Turkish products, especially food and processed agricultural products, garments, home textiles, cosmetics and jewellery industries could make significant contributions to the Chinese market.

We were happy to see a yearly increase of 62.5 % in our agricultural exports to China in 2019. This positive trend is being maintained.

Indeed, I am very pleased to announce a very recent development in on this: As of last month, Turkey started exporting poultry meat and products to China for the first time.

More on the line. Now we are also working on exporting:

• Meat and meat products,
• citrus,
• bay leaf,
• pomegranate,
• almond kernels,
• apple and
• kiwi

We are determined to bring the best samples of the Turkish cuisine, which is regarded as one the three best cuisines in the world, to the tables of the Chinese consumers.

Taking into account the breathtaking developments in technology and the ongoing conditions of the pandemic, we have accelerated our plans to establish a “Turkish E-Commerce Center” to benefit
from digital economy and to make our export process much more speedy and sophisticated.

As I conclude my remarks, I would like to reiterate our commitment to working closely
with China in order to build a constructive dialogue on the most pressing issues of our world.

Developments in technology, transportation, communication make geographical distances less and less relevant. That’s also partly why we consider China a close and reliable
partner in furthering economic integration and cooperation across Asia and the rest of the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The industries are being re-organized and new ways of doing business are emerging. These will also result in the emergence of new legal structures and legislations that will further
improve the business practices.

I hope that discussions throughout this meeting will contribute to the better understanding of current global business dynamics.

Once again, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the organizers of this international Forum and wish for a fruitful meeting.