Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was not invited to the Organization of American States meeting, which started on June 6, on the grounds that it was not legitimate, is making an official visit to Turkey upon the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
It has been reported that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who arrived in the capital Ankara tonight, will meet with President Erdogan tomorrow. It is stated that the purpose of Maduro’s visit is to increase economic and financial cooperation between the two countries and to negotiate on geopolitical issues.
Political, cultural and economic relations between Venezuela and Turkey have been increasing since 2016. Visiting Venezuela at the end of April, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu pointed out that Turkey is the country to which Venezuela exports the most and said that this year’s trade volume target is 1.5 billion dollars.
After Çavuşoğlu’s visit, Venezuelan authorities announced that they are working on topics such as economy and finance, security, agriculture, food, transportation, education, health, tourism and transportation for the further development of bilateral relations.
Maduro also expresses that they expect Turkish investors to Venezuela at almost every opportunity.
Trade deal benefits Venezuela more
The trade volume between Venezuela and Turkey, which was approximately 152 million dollars in 2019, approached 298 million dollars in 2020 when the bilateral trade agreement was signed, and exceeded 850 million dollars last year.
Although the fact that thousands of products are partially or fully provided with tax advantages within the framework of the agreement brings advantages in import and export to both countries, Venezuela, which has increased its exports to Turkey 28 times in the last two years, seems to have benefited more financially from this agreement.
While Venezuela’s exports to Turkey were 19 million 799 thousand dollars in total in 2019, this amount increased to 551 million 235 thousand dollars last year. Last year, Venezuela’s exports to Turkey had increased nearly 9 times compared to the previous year.
While exporting more than 333 million dollars worth of goods to Turkey in the January-April period of this year, Venezuela, which imported 90 million dollars, continues to have a foreign trade surplus in its trade with Turkey this year.
236 million dollars from Venezuela in 2020 from Turkey; In 2021, it made 300 million dollars of imports.