Turkey and Senegal have agreed to upgrade their bilateral trade volume target after successfully achieving and even exceeding their earlier goal, their leaders said.
The revision came on the sidelines of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Senegal as part of his three-nation four-day Africa trip.
Erdoğan on Tuesday noted Turkey's determination to rev up cooperation with Africa, stressing the positive impact of already strong relations on trade and investments.
The trade target with Senegal has more than doubled from $400 million to $1 billion, Erdoğan told Turkey-Senegal Business Forum and later a joint press conference with his Senegalese counterpart Macky Sall in the capital Dakar on Monday.
"Our target now is $1 billion. With our joint efforts we will reach this figure in short order," he said.
The trade with Senegal jumped 42% year-over-year to $540 million in 2021 despite the coronavirus pandemic, Erdoğan highlighted.
"I hope we will move toward our goals very quickly in the coming period without losing this momentum."
Accompanied by a delegation of government members and businesspeople, Erdoğan paid a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday.
He is expected to arrive in Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday, in a trip that will mark the first presidential-level official visit from Turkey to the West African country.
"We attach great importance to structuring our investments in a way to prioritize human resources while advancing our relations," Erdoğan said, as he was due to attend the opening ceremony of Dakar Olympic Stadium on Tuesday, which was built by a Turkish contractor.
"For instance, 1,000 of the total 1,500 workers employed in the Dakar Olympic Stadium project were our Senegalese brothers and sisters."
"The contributions of our companies within the Emerging Senegal Plan will continue with the support of the Senegalese people," Erdoğan added.
"Also, our firms in Senegal carry out activities in the areas of energy, steel production, health care, the food industry, ready-mixed concrete production and gold processing on the basis of mutual interest."
New agreements
For his part, Sall also said they rapidly exceeded their trade goal set two years ago and expressed beliefs the two countries would also achieve the new level soon.
Sall also stressed the continuous determination to take the partnership level between Turkey and Senegal to a higher level.
He praised Turkish companies that have initiated various investment projects in the country and said investments between the two countries should increase even more.
Erdoğan and Sall oversaw the signing of five agreements between the two countries, including in security, maritime and media.
Erdoğan stressed the need to put new mechanisms into practice while utilizing existing opportunities to enhance economic ties between the two countries.
Growing ties with Africa
Thanks to its geographical location and influence in the region, Senegal is an export gateway to West African countries, he said.
"On the basis of the win-win principle, cooperation channels set especially in the fields of production, agriculture, tourism, textile, industry, energy, food and health will benefit the entire region."
Turkey is seeking to strengthen its cooperation with Africa. Since 2003, the volume of its trade with the continent has increased from $5.4 billion in 2003 to at least $35 billion in 2021.
Addressing the reporters aboard the presidential plane, Erdoğan on Tuesday reiterated the goal to lift this figure first to $50 billion and then to $75 billion in the coming period.
Turkey's investments have exceeded $6 billion and Turkish companies have undertaken around 1,700 projects on the continent worth around $78 billion, he said.
Erdoğan has visited Africa nearly 40 times since 2005, as prime minister and president. In this time, Turkey has opened some 43 embassies on the continent.