Turkey and Colombia raised their bilateral ties to the level of strategical partnership after signing a joint memorandum, the Turkish president said on Friday.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a press conference with his Colombian counterpart, Ivan Duque Marquez, following a meeting in the former's working office at the Dolmabahçe Palace in the metropolis of Istanbul.
The two leaders touched on issues related to bilateral relations between Ankara and Bogota during the meeting.
"Turkey and Colombia have raised their bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership with the joint memorandum," Erdoğan told reporters.
He added that he plans to pay a visit to Colombia, along with a tour of the region, by Aug. 7.
Erdoğan, referring to Colombia as one of Turkey’s most important trade partners in Latin America and the Caribbean – the second-largest after Brazil – said the bilateral trade volume doubled to over $2 billion in 2021.
"Colombia also became one of the countries where we increased our exports the most last year. Our goal is to increase our trade volume to $5 billion as soon as possible," the president said.
He noted that both countries make great efforts to increase mutual investments.
"With its developing economy, Colombia offers attractive opportunities for Turkish investments. We support the increase of mutual contacts and visits between Turkish and Colombian business people," he said.
Colombian President Duque, for his part, said that the agreements signed between Turkey and Colombia not only expanded the trade volume, but also planted an important seed in relations.
Duque stated that they came to Istanbul with an important delegation from Colombia within the scope of their visit and said, "Our aim is to accelerate our bilateral relations. How do we gain this momentum? First of all, we will improve our bilateral relations. We will ensure this development together with our strategic cooperation."
"We will immediately start to double, triple, quadruple, our bilateral trade volume in the next 10 years. We need to start this right now," he said.
Duque stated that the investments between the two countries are very important and they want to maximize them, and that they can bring the investments to the most important point with complementary cooperation agreements.
Explaining that Turkish and Colombian investors conducted meetings in Istanbul on Friday, Duque said, "Turkish companies already exist (in Colombia) and our doors are open to those who want to come."