Prime Minister Erdoğan's Visits to Finland, Sweden, Poland

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will be paying official visits to Finland, Sweden and Poland from Nov. 5-6.
 
These three European countries have common denominators for Turkey. They are all Turkey's allies. They are all countries that support Turkey's EU membership bid and developed cooperation with Turkey in recent times. To this end, regional and international developments will be discussed during the visits.
 
There is the possibility of cooperating with Sweden and Finland in the fields of communication, information technology, security, environment, energy, electronics, forestry, defense, medical industry and tourism. In Poland, Turkish companies have the great advantage of cooperation and investment in construction, construction materials, energy, machinery and defense industry, textile, food, tourism and jewelry as well as trade and involvement in EU technology development projects.
 
The volume of foreign trade between Turkey and Finland is around $1.5 billion. There are 8,600 Turkish citizens in Finland. In addition, nearly 400 Turkish enterprises are active in the country's service sector. In Turkey, there are 80 Finnish companies while 200 Finnish companies have representatives and liaison offices. The number of Finnish tourists traveling to Turkey is around 200,000 every year. About 2,500 Finnish people live in Alanya, Turkey.
 
A Declaration on Strategic Partnership signed in March 2013 has become an important instrument in relations between Turkey and Sweden. Sweden is one of the countries extending strong support to Turkey's EU membership bid. It also pioneered the creation of Turkey's Friends Group. There are 115,000 Turks in Sweden, most of whom hold dual citizenship. Foreign trade volume between Turkey and Sweden is around $3.5 billion. Turkey exports textile products, motor vehicles, color TVs, fridges, ceramic products, metal ores, vegetables and fruits and aluminum to Sweden, whereas it imports iron-cast products, machinery and parts, electrical devices, motor vehicles, medicine and other chemicals, nuclear reactors, metal ores, paper products and plastic. Sweden makes $236 million of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Turkey whereas Turkey's FDI in Sweden is around $19 million. The number of Swedish tourists traveling to Turkey is 618,000. However, a decision taken by the Swedish Parliament on March 11, 2010 on the recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian, Keldani and Pontus genocide has hurt bilateral relations.
 
In Turkey-Poland relations, 2013 marks the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations while 2014 represents the 600th anniversary of the start of relations between the two countries. Prime Minister Erdoğan is expected to deliver a speech on this occasion in Warsaw. Poland is one of the countries that are able to use their geopolitics and geopolitical capacities. To this end, the Polish Ministry of Economy picked Turkey as one of the five countries with which Poland wants to enhance bilateral relations. Foreign trade volume between Turkey and Poland is around $5 billion. Both countries produce similar items. The two countries have a strong potential to develop cooperation in the defense industry. Poland is the most preferred country by Turkish college students in Erasmus exchange program after Germany. To this end, there are 1,900 Turkish students in Poland and nearly 1,000 Polish students in Turkey.