December 16, 2015•Update: December 17, 2015
By Magdalene Mukami
NAIROBI
In an interview with Anadolu Agency at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 10th ministerial meeting on Tuesday, the Turkish Economy Minister Mustafa Elitas said that Turkey will focus on finding solutions for the problems affecting poor and less developed countries in multilateral trading systems as emphasized by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the G20 summit in Antalya.
“Turkey will underline and emphasize the need that we should strengthen the multilateral trade system, and most importantly what we are going to try to emphasize during the 10th ministerial conference here is that we should further encourage and strengthen the capacities of the least-developed countries in order to increase their trade,” Elitas said.
This will be the main message from Turkey, the minister strressed. "An economic system which does not include the least-developed countries or the poor countries is not a fair one. Problems faced by poor countries are not a local problem -- on the contrary, these are global problems, and we can only overcome global problems by finding global solutions.”
Turkey has been in the forefront in the fight against poverty in the least-developed countries and is currently ranked third worldwide as the most generous international donors after its 2014, $1.6 billion allocation to humanitarian assistance.
Elitas added that the same sentiments on supporting poor countries have also been voiced by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
“Our prime minister expressed the same message, that we should always be on the side of the neglected nations, I also believe that we will find the occasion to express our priorities regarding the agricultural and industrial sectors of Turkey [at the conference],” he said.
The minister added that, while in Nairobi, his country will be holding bilateral and multilateral meetings in the framework of the WTO Ministerial conference with different ministers and delegations.
He noted that Turkey has also shared -- during a meeting with the Islamic Development Bank - its opinions regarding how countries can improve the multilateral trade system.
“We will also go through our bilateral relations with the ministers of 15 different countries, just to name a few Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.”
Regarding the accession of Afghanistan and Liberia to the WTO, the Minister said that his country fully supports their candidacy.
"We (Turkey) are pleased to see that they are members of the WTO; our priority is to find solutions to the problems affecting poor countries and less-developed countries in such a multilateral trading system. This is how we can come up with solutions for their problems, and I am sure that the membership of Afghanistan and Liberia will be a great opportunity for these two countries.”
Turkey has been holding bilateral meetings with different trade ministers since Monday, the minister said. "Turkey is in Nairobi to accelerate all the negotiations and all the efforts that are still going on between member countries to reach fruitful agreements."
The Turkish Minister congratulated the Kenyan government and the people of Kenya for holding the WTO Ministerial conference; he thanked Kenyans for their hospitality and said that he will hold bilateral talks with Kenyan government officials on how to boost trade relations between the two countries.
The Minister recalled that Turkey was a candidate for hosting the tenth ministerial conference of the WTO. However, on learning that Kenya was one of the candidates, Turkey stepped down in favor of Kenya.
"We wanted Kenya to be the country to host the first WTO ministerial level conference in Africa," he said.
