Mohammed Al-Kinani

JEDDAH: More than 400 business leaders and officials attended a special meeting of the Saudi-Turkish Business Forum in Jeddah in a further boost to economic ties between the two countries.

Amid discussions around further investment opportunities, a number of agreements were signed covering construction, real estate, and tourism, as well as mining, food and agriculture, and the financial services sector.

The meeting came just days after a similar event was held in the Turkish capital Ankara, which saw real estate agreements worth more than SR2.3 billion ($610 million) reached.

After the latest meeting, held in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, Tuba Terekli, a Jeddah-based investor and international business consultant, told Arab News that Saudi-Turkish economic ties are expected to grow significantly in the near future. 

“There were agreements in construction between the two sides of nearly $400million and that would probably reach $3-$4 billion in the upcoming six months,” she said. 

Addressing the forum, Cuneyt Saricimen, country advisor at the Investment Office of the Turkish Presidency, shed light on the growth of the Turkish economy in a bid to encourage more trade with the Kingdom.

Others attending the event included Asaad Al Jomoai, managing director of the Global Supply Chain Resilience Initiative at the Saudi Ministry of Investment, who gave details on the Saudi Vision 2030 and the giga-projects being developed in the Kingdom.  

Tariq Al-Zeer, general manager of the administration of real estate sector operations at the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs, and Housing, used an address to highlight the investment opportunities in the Saudi housing sector. 

There are currently 1,140 Saudi companies operating in Turkiye, and 395 Turkish companies investing in the Kingdom.

According to Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu, Turkiye wants to strengthen its relationships with countries in the Middle East, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said ahead of his visit to the region.

“We would like to further strengthen all kinds of relations between us by traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE,” Erdogan told reporters after returning from a two-day NATO Summit in Lithuania. 

Last December, the Saudi-Turkish Business Forum was held in in Istanbul, Turkiye, in the presence of the Kingdom’s Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih, the Turkish Minister of Treasury and Finance Nureddin Nebati, and with the participation of more than 280 companies from the two countries.