Turkey, Albania sign a joint economic committee protocol

TIRANA, Jan 27 – Turkey’s State Minister Nimet Cubukcu and Albanian Minister of Agriculture Jemin Gjana signed a protocol at the end of the tenth meeting of the Turkish-Albanian JEC meeting in Ankara.
“I believe we may boost our commercial and economic relations within the scope of the principle of mutual interests,” Cubukcu said during the signing ceremony.
Gjana also said that the protocol would further help improve commercial and economic relations between Albania and Turkey.
Turkey is in third place among countries Albania is importing goods from, and it is in sixth place among countries Albania is exporting goods to.
The trade volume between the two countries was $64 million in 2000 and climbed to $318 million by 2007.
Turkish exports to Albania reached $282 million during the first 11 months of 2008.
The protocol envisions a balanced bilateral trade volume between Turkey and Albania, a visit by a Turkish trade delegation to Albania in the first half of 2009, a meeting of the Turkish-Albanian Business Council in Turkey in the second half of 2009, solutions to problems in business circles, the signing of a memorandum of understanding on contracting and technical consultancy services in the first half of 2009, the signing of a cooperation agreement on patent and standardization, maintaining cooperation to ship natural gas to Albania and Europe via Turkey, and boosting cooperation in agriculture, environment, tourism and health.