Turkey seeks Inda's cooperation in tourism, R&D to boost trade

NEW DELHI: Turkey today sought enhancing cooperation with India in areas like research and development, tourism and manufacturing to boost trade and economic ties between the countries.

Turkey Ambassador to India Burak Akcapar said that a new and liberalised trade framework is required for both the countries.

"There is a need to bring business communities of the two sides together in order to explore opportunities in other nations. Both India and Turkey are lagging in R&D, so a collaborative scheme is required," he said at a Federation of Indian Export organisations ( FIEO) function.

He also advocated for more flight operations between the nations to increase tourist traffic as the existing flights are inadequate to cope with the demand.

"There is a huge potential in tourism sector cooperation. Increasing flight operations would help India to attract more and more foreign tourists," he said.

Turkey is an important inbound tourist source market for India. In 2011, a total number of 17,329 tourists from Turkey visited India.

Turkish Airlines is planning to spread their network in India with the possible code sharing with Air India, Akcapar said.

Addressing exporter members of FIEO, he said that the bilateral trade between the countries are below potential.

"More and more business-to-business meetings should be arranged to increase interactions between the companies of both the sides," he added.

The bilateral trade stood at about USD 5 billion in 2012-13.

Major imports from Turkey comprise minerals, fertilisers, nuclear reactors and machinery, while exports include pharma, man-made yarn and electronic goods.