The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed between Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in March will come into effect starting Friday, following the completion of internal approval processes, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Thursday.
Türkiye and the UAE signed an extensive economic partnership deal to boost trade early in March and have recently further enhanced the economic relations by signing 13 agreements worth $50.7 billion during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to the Gulf country.
With the extensive economic partnership agreement coming into force, a new era will begin in the economic relations between the two countries.
The agreement is expected to serve as a strong instrument in elevating the bilateral trade volume and mutual investments to the highest level, aligning with the expectations and interests of both countries.
Türkiye’s foreign trade volume with its largest trade partner in the Gulf region, UAE, amounted to nearly $10 billion last year. Various globally branded Turkish companies, starting from contracting to gastronomy and logistics, finance to health, education and tourism sectors, are conducting successful business in the UAE.
Tevfik Öz, the President of the Türkiye-UAE Business Council at the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), told AA that Türkiye and the UAE have a deep and comprehensive bilateral trade network.
“The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement aims to bring new dimensions to bilateral trade relations. According to the agreement between Türkiye and the UAE, in addition to the trade of goods, the agreement covers service trade, measures to facilitate the trade of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), public procurement, intellectual property, trade measures, and other regulatory rules,” he explained.
“With the agreement, Turkish products can more easily enter the UAE market and other countries, the interest of UAE investors in our country will increase, and we believe we can reach and even exceed the $25 billion trade volume in a short time,” Öz said.
Warming ties
Ties between Türkiye and the Arab world are experiencing a major thaw after years of tense relations. President Erdoğan’s visit to the Gulf in July resulted in signing several contracts in the fields of energy, direct investment, defense and media.
On Monday, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at forging further cooperation in the field of critical minerals, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s relations with Türkiye have entered a phase of partnership, according to the kingdom’s industry minister.
Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef said Thursday in an interview with AA that Saudi Arabia has confidence in Turkish investors to build an economic base on which the two countries can boost their cooperation.
“We find great opportunities for cooperation with Türkiye in food security, health, military and industrial sectors,” Alkhorayef said.
“Aircraft and defense industry and the development of aluminum for aircraft fuselages, titanium and carbon fiber, which are necessary for certain industries, are important sectors for cooperation with Türkiye,” Alkhorayef noted.
“Türkiye is a large importer of petrochemical materials, and it is possible to work with Ankara to fill the need in this sector,” he added.
The Saudi industry minister stressed that his country’s relationship with Türkiye is “bigger than a supplier-customer relationship.”
“It is a partnership that includes the localization of industries, technology transfer, training, qualification and capacity-building in research, development and innovation,” he said.
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