ANKARA
Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said Roberto Azevedo, who has been chosen for the position of Director General of World Trade Organization (WTO), and his team will assume a key role in the process of finding solutions to the problems of the world economy.
Caglayan, congratulating Azevedo for his new position, stated that Azevedo had assumed important roles especially in refreshment of the confidence to the multilateral trade system and vivifying the ongoing trade negotiations for ten years, in a written statement.
"Turkey, a country which has been always in a constructive effort to improve the multilateral trade negotiations in a fair and balanced way, is ready to work in co-operation with the new director general as did before. The world economy is to recover with increased trade and solutions would be found to many problems like poverty, unemployment, economic growth with increased trade. Ambassador Azevedo and his team will be a key in this process on behalf of the WTO," also said Caglayan.
Turkey-Israel foreign trade volume peaks in 2011
Caglayan said that the foreign trade volume between Turkey and Israel has peaked in 2011 and reached 4.5 billion USD.
Responding to the written motion at Parliament, Caglayan reminded that the Free Trade Agreement signed between Turkey and Israel on March 14, 1996 was put in effect on May 1, 1997.
Caglayan said that 650 million USD of exports took place in the year 2000, which increased 258 percent within 12 years, and reached 2.3 billion USD in 2012.
Stating that the volume of foreign trade also increased 250 percent in the same period to 4 billion USD, Caglayan said that foreign trade volume between Turkey and Israel peaked in 2011 and reached 4.5 billion USD.