Rustam Minnikhanov: Turkey is one of the leading partners of Tatarstan

On October 21, speaking at the 15th meeting of the Mixed Inter-governmental Russian-Turkish Commission on Trade-and-Economic Cooperation, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said that Turkish companies have invested about two billion US dollars in Tatarstan.

Minister of Energy of Russia Alexander Novak and Minister of Economy of Turkey Nihat Zeybekci, who are chairmen of the commission from Russian and Turkish part accordingly, took part in the meeting.

Speaking at the event, Minnikhanov thanked Novak and Zeybekci for choosing Kazan to hold the meeting. 

He stressed that Turkey is one of the leading partners of Tatarstan with a total amount of investments in the republic making about two billion US dollars. Minnikhanov continued that a number of Turkish plants, including Kastamonu Entegre, Hayat Kimya, Şişecam - Trakya Glass Rus, Coşkunöz, Tirsan Karda and many others are successfully operating in the region.

“This year we are planning to launch TAIF-NK complex for deep processing of heavy oil residues, with Turkish Gemont Company being the general contractor,” Minnikhanov said.

According to him, Tatarstan is actively cooperating with Gebze, one of the largest industrial zones in Turkey, which will become an operator for the development of the Sviyazhsky multimodal complex and special economic zones located in Tatarstan.

“Our cooperation covers a wide range of areas, including power engineering, petrochemistry, machine-building and automotive industry, high technologies, health-care, construction, agriculture and many others,” Tatarstan President pointed out.

Minnikhanov stressed that Tatarstan and Turkey have a lot of opportunities for further development of business contacts and Turkish companies, working in the republic, have already seen that.

"We need to use the existing economic potential more actively for expanding mutually beneficial cooperation. We are interested in the Turkish business developing its projects in Tatarstan and are ready to create all the necessary conditions for this,” Minnikhanov said.