Despite Turkey’s most important trade deal since 1995, which came into effect with the UK as of the 1st Jan this year, and it being worth over $25bn in revenue, further negotiations between Ankara and London will take place next year, which is designed to strengthen existing ties and add new areas of commercial cooperation, such as investments and services.
Graham Stuart, who is the UK’s Minister for Exports recently pointed out that ‘Shipment between the two countries increased 70% over the last decade, until 2019 which pushed the volume to nearly 20 billion GBP’ but, recognising the increasing interest in Turkish companies to invest in Britain there is more to do in terms of co-operation, and now is the perfect time to start those discussions.
One of the key areas will be further investment in Technological advances to help deal with climate change, an ageing population and our reliance on ‘going digital’ and areas that will especially take precedence will be in ‘clean growth’ such as electric cars and autonomous systems.
Mr Stuart was also keen to mention that despite the pandemic, venture capital investments had grown significantly in the UK over the last 18 months, mainly from outside of Europe, and this was put down to the fact that since the UK left the EU ‘we are opening to global markets that were not possible while in the EU, and add to that, companies want the access to the world’s leading cross-border financial centres and the best University Systems in Europe’.
Noting that Turkey has made significant progress over the last decade Mr Stuart commented that ‘Turkey is an Important Power and a very attractive market. They are getting richer and more International in all areas’.
On Climate Change, the UK is hosting the U.N. Climate Conference in November and working together to address climate change can help further trade between Turkey & the UK. Not only that, but with the experience that the UK has in things like installing electric vehicle charging points, it will help Istanbul deliver on their climate promises.
It’s not been forgotten either that Turkey recently developed it’s first ‘homegrown’ car, and advances are being made in developing their first electric vehicle too. On a recent trip to Turkey, Mr Stuart met with the team at TOGG who are instrumental in those advances, and he also met with Delta V who are using hybrid technology in a way that could be world leading.
