Transcript of Pointers for Joint Press Conference by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 9 January 2014, 1200-1215hrs

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, first may I welcome Prime Minister Erdoğan on his first visit to Singapore.

Under the Prime Minister’s leadership, Turkey has made substantial progress. The economy has tripled in size and the international standing of Turkey is high. Turkey will be joining the G20 troika, and will be hosting the G20 next year. As our two countries have prospered, our bilateral ties have correspondingly grown. Singapore now has an Embassy in Ankara and a trade office in Istanbul; our trade and investments have grown, although there is still a lot of potential for further development; and we have regular exchanges among our political leaders and our parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Erdoğan’s visit to Singapore is another milestone in our relationship. Turkey is keen to engage Asia, just as Singapore is keen to strengthen ties in Europe. Singapore and Turkey can be gateways to our respective regions for the other party.

The Prime Minister and I agreed that we would enhance cooperation between Singapore and Turkey in three areas - economic ties, financial cooperation as well as counter-terrorism.

In terms of economic relations, the Prime Minister has brought with him a very strong delegation, more than 80 businessmen representing the major companies in Turkey with him. They will be attending the Third Turkey-Singapore Business Forum this afternoon and I am confident that out of these meetings, there will emerge new partnerships and new cooperation. From the government-to-government level, we also agreed, between the Prime Minister and me, to begin negotiations on a comprehensive Turkey-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA). We have instructed our respective Economics and Trade and Industry Ministers and they will be commencing negotiations. Beyond the FTA we also discussed the aviation links, and I explained to the Prime Minister that Singapore is ready to enhance our bilateral air links with Turkey in order to promote business and people-to-people linkages, and the Prime Minister told me, he said yes, he understands that the flights between Singapore and Turkey are all full.

In terms of financial cooperation, we agreed to start a regular dialogue between our two Finance Ministries and this would be a useful platform for us to engage on issues like macroeconomic developments, multilateral cooperation and long-term financing.

On counter-terrorism, we have just witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and this MOU and our cooperation in this area will help to keep our countries and peoples safe from an international threat, which is very much present in both our regions in the world.

So I am very happy to welcome Prime Minister Erdoğan here to Singapore just a few months after we last met in St. Petersburg and Iook forward to continuing our discussions over lunch and to pushing our relationship another step forward.