Arinc: "Turkey stands ready to contribute to development in Africa"

Turkey would like to help reduce poverty in Africa and improve the quality of life there, said State Minister Bulent Arinc yesterday. Speaking at the first meeting of the Turkish-Ugandan Joint Economic Commission (KEK) in Uganda, Arinc said his visit is an important step towards improving political and economic ties between the two countries. He said that mutual sincerity and good will have yielded positive results and that Uganda is a close friend of Turkey despite the geographical distance between the two. "Turkey wants to contribute to reducing poverty in Africa and would like to create another strategy that aims to develop countries there," he said. "Africa should not be isolated from the global economy but should be fully integrated into the world." Arinc stressed that trade between Turkey and Uganda has ballooned 200 percent since 2003, when the Foreign Trade Undersecretariat began a strategy to improve Turkey's economic and trade ties with African countries, but added, "Trade between our two countries falls far short of its potential. We should bring a sharper focus to this in order to boost trade between Uganda and Turkey."