Turkey will sign free trade agreement with Lebanon

Speaking to the A.A correspondent on Sunday, Tuzmen said that they had accelerated talks on signing FTAs with African and Arab countries.

"We have recorded significant progress in our meetings with Lebanese Prime Minister Mr. Rafiq Hariri during his visit to Turkey. Mr. Hariri stated that they were willing to sign a FTA with Turkey. Our technical delegations will meet in coming days and work on mutual lists of products and make a decision. We decided to sign a FTA with Lebanon by the end of July following those meetings," he said.

Recalling that Turkey had made such a deal with Morocco, which was the first FTA of Turkey among African and Arab countries that the European Union had already had FTA, Tuzmen said, "we signed FTA with Morocco. We initialed draft agreement with Palestine. During our visit to Syria, we decided to finalize FTA by the end of the year both our meeting with both Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and Syrian government officials. Our talks with Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia are under way."

"When we finalize our talks on signing FTA with the countries which already have such agreement with the EU, Turkey’s total trade volume and exports from Turkey to African and Arab countries increase swiftly and significantly. In this way, economy of the countries with which we sign FTA revives, which is beneficial to all sides. After signing of FTA, Turkish exporters will be absolutely successful since they have equal competitive conditions in those countries as EU member states," Tuzmen stated.