Having enjoyed an upward trend in bilateral economic ties in recent years, the two countries are committed to further improving the potential. Deng Li, the Chinese ambassador to Turkey, said at a seminar in Istanbul in March that he expected Chinese investment and tourists to Turkey to double by 2021.
Today, more than 1,000 Chinese companies are doing business in Turkey, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Bank of China, and tech titans Huawei and ZTE.
Stating Turkey is one of the most dynamic economies in the world, Ambassador Onen said Turkey welcomes Chinese entrepreneurs to make more investments especially in the fields of energy, transport, finance, infrastructure and information technology.
He said Turkey is the 18th largest economy in the world and the sixth largest economy when compared with the European Union countries, saying it has plenty of advantages including a strategic location with lucrative export opportunities.
Located at the heart of Eurasia, Turkey has a customs union with the EU and an extensive free trade agreement network. Within four hours of flight from Istanbul, investors can reach 1.5 billion people in 57 different countries and have access to these multiple markets worth $24 trillion of GDP.
"We will continue to support the Belt and Road Initiative and attract more investors from China to Turkey. And those Chinese investors can use Turkey as a production hub for reaching out to European markets and beyond," Onen said.
As far as tourism goes, China's declaration of 2018 as its Turkey Tourism Year contributed hugely to the increase in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Turkey last year. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Turkey jumped 60 percent year-on-year in 2018 to over 400,000.
"Our goal is to have at least 1 million tourists in two or three years," Onen said. "We saw 1.6 million Chinese people search for Turkey on Baidu in a year. And 22 million searched for pictures of scenery and destinations in Turkey on Baidu and other social media. So we understand that we are on the right path to discover this potential more."
According to him, Turkey is planning to open a new consul general office in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Currently, Turkey has three consul generals in China, in Shanghai, Guangzhou in Guangdong province and Hong Kong.
"We consider that tourism can be one of the important cooperation areas in Turkey-China bilateral relations," Tan from the Ministry of Trade of Turkey said. "We need to maintain this momentum, and strengthen cooperation in tourism. We will continue our efforts for additional promotional activities. We want to stay in touch with Chinese consumers through media and television to maintain the interest of Chinese citizens."
Tan said global trade will be transformed to digital trade together with online and offline dimensions in the next decade.
"We are on the verge of an era where the settled rules for the sale of goods and services are completely different," Tan said. "We are working hard to make new collaborations with our Chinese counterparts in the future in this respect. Also, Turkey is ready to build further collaborations with Chinese e-commerce firms mainly JD and Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall."
