Turkey, Russia negotiating to start trading in local currencies

Turkey and Russia are carrying out negotiations on using national currencies, either the Turkish lira or Russian ruble, in major investment projects between the two countries, Turkey's Deputy Economy Minister Adnan Yıldırım said.

Speaking at a joint Russian-Turkish businessmen council meeting on Monday, Yıldırım said "We would like payments in rubles and lira to be introduced at least for the larger investment projects in Russia and Turkey,"

Russia's Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), Georgy Petrov said that the two countries are discussing allowing Russian tourists visiting Turkey to use rubles.

Alexei Lihachev, the Russian Deputy Minister of Economy and Development highlighted that they would like to bring the total volume of trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2020. He noted that serious steps have been taken by corporations and businessmen to remove commercial obstacles in the way of Turkish and Russian firms and added that wide-scale developments are expected in Russian-Turkish economic relations gaining a stronger legal and conventional ground in 2015.

It was noted that it is crucial to resolve the issue of the passage of Turkish trucks, which remains an obstacle to reaching the $100 billion goal. Turkish businessmen underlined that this is one of the most urgent issues that needs an immediate resolution for the volume of trade between the two countries to increase.

For the full year of 2014, the total amount of Turkish exports was $157 billion, with exports to Russia totaling to $6.5 billion. Russia is Turkey's second most important trade partner after Germany while Turkey is Russia's eighth largest trading partner.

In December, Russia scrapped the South Stream natural gas pipeline project planned to pass through Bulgaria to Europe, and announced that a new natural gas pipeline route through Turkey's northwestern Thrace region. The country also announced that a natural gas hub on the Turkish-Greek border will be built.