Turkey eyes major share from China's huge foreign exchange reserve

Completing his talks in China yesterday, State Minister for Foreign Trade Zafer Caglayan met with Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Wang Qishan. During the meeting, Caglayan briefed Qishan on Turkey's financial markets and especially treasury bonds with an eye to securing a considerable share from China's $2.1 trillion worth of huge foreign exchange reserve, as well as offering to use national currencies in bilateral trade between Turkey and the world's fastest growing major economy. For his part, Qishan said that they would soon make contact with the Turkish Treasury for possible purchases of treasury bonds, and asked for more information about the Turkish Treasury's Eurobond portfolio. He also welcomed the idea of using national currencies in bilateral trade between the two countries. The two ministers also agreed on a number of steps to further improve the bilateral trade ties. Among the agreed steps are development of joint construction projects that would be undertaken by Chinese and Turkish contractors in third countries, visits by Chinese trade delegations to Turkey, restart of Turkey's white meat exports to this country, which were halted due to bird flue, imposing sanctions on Chinese companies making imitations of Turkish products, price reduction for ship orders by Turkish companies to Chinese shipyards. Speaking to reporters on board back home, Caglayan said that Chinese officials were very interested in infrastructural investments in Turkey such as a third bridge over the Bosporus and subway constructions. Caglayan also attended a meeting of Turkish-Chinese Joint Economic Committee.