Erdogan seeks to boost ties with Africa in four-day visit | News

The Turkish president needs to spice up enterprise ties with African nations.

Turkey’s president has promised to spice up relations with African nations as he visited the Senegalese capital Dakar throughout a four-day tour of Central and West Africa.

“We are going to proceed to reinforce our relationships with African nations on the premise of sincerity and solidarity,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned on Tuesday throughout a joint press convention along with his Senegalese counterpart Macky Sall.

“We exchanged concepts on how we are able to additional advance our relationships in each space,” he mentioned. “We as soon as once more gladly noticed that we share the identical willpower to deepen our cooperation.”

In 2021, the amount of bilateral commerce between Turkey and Senegal reached $540m. Erdogan has mentioned the objective is to convey the determine to $1bn.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Company (TIKA), which “has since 2007 accomplished 186 tasks in Senegal with a complete worth of $12m, is decided to take care of its actions,” he mentioned.

Sall praised Turkish corporations which have initiated numerous funding tasks within the nation and mentioned investments between the 2 nations ought to enhance much more.

The Turkish president is about to attend Wednesday’s opening ceremony of the Dakar Olympic Stadium, which was constructed by a Turkish firm.

Erdogan, who set out on Sunday for the tour, can even go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea-Bissau.

In Dakar, the Turkish president famous that the third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit, held in Istanbul in December, set out a roadmap in Turkish relations with Africa for 2022 to 2026.

Leaders from greater than a dozen African nations attended the summit, highlighting Turkey’s increasing affect on the continent.

Since its 2019 intervention within the Libyan civil battle, Istanbul has steadily expanded its African footprint because it seeks to exchange Western affect on the continent.

The European Union has sought to counter each Turkish and Chinese language affect, positioning itself as “Africa’s companion of selection” throughout a summit with the African Union earlier this month.

“The European Union is the primary buying and selling companion and the primary investor in Africa,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, mentioned after the two-day summit, which drew to an in depth on February 18. “Certainly, we want a stronger partnership between us.”