On his visit to Turkey Prime Minister Babiš talks with President Erdoğan about supporting bilateral trade

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš visited Turkey accompanied by Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček and a delegation of businessmen. During talks with the country’s most senior representatives, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the representatives of the Czech government focused on economic issues, looking at greater economic cooperation between the two countries, as well as discussing migration, the fight against terrorism and the completion of Adularya power plant.

On his official visit to Turkey the Czech Prime Minister was received by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The main topics for their talks covered increasing trade between the two countries, Turkish cooperation with the European Union, the fight against terrorism and illegal migration.

“Our talks were very amicable and continued for almost two hours. We agreed that the turnover of bilateral trade is insufficient, and our target is five billion dollars. I was surprised to learn that the Turkish construction sector is the second largest in the world. We’re building in our country, and we’d welcome Turkish companies,” Andrej Babiš said after the talks.

They also talked about resolving problems with a Czech-Turkish construction project for Adularya power plant. “The Czech Republic has received an offer from Turkey to take over all the assets for the unfinished Adularya project,” the Prime Minister added.

Prime Minister Babiš also talked with Mustafa Şentop, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly, about Czech-Turkish cooperation between the two parliaments, bilateral trade, migration and foreign policy. “We agreed that parliamentary diplomacy was important. We also talked about politics, the overall situation in the region and of course we talked at length about migration. We exchanged views on potential solutions for Syria, Libya and African migration. I told Mr Speaker about the situation in the European Union, where a new European Commission is currently being assembled,” the Prime Minister recapitulated.

Key topics again included economic cooperation between the two countries. “We both said we have great reserve capacities for trade, and we’d like to increase turnover. That’s the main reason we came here, with a large delegation representing prominent Czech companies,” the Prime Minister remarked.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Industry and Trade also had discussions with the Turkish Minister of Trade, Ruhsar Pekcan. Besides exploring ways of increase bilateral trade they also talked about problems with importing Turkish steel into the European Union, and with financing the problematic Czech-Turkish project to build Adularya power plant. The programme for the first day of the official visit to Turkey included talks between representatives of both countries’ Chambers of Commerce, which were attended by members of the both governments.

In Ankara Prime Minister Babiš and his wife Monika visited the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish state and the country’s first president. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the sarcophagus and signed the official memorial book before visiting the Atatürk Museum. The Prime Minister and the Mr Havlíček then planted a memorial linden tree in the Czech ambassador’s garden in Ankara.