Turkish State Minister Zafer Caglayan said, "the USA is the biggest importer of the world with an annual import of nearly 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars. Turkey's exports to the USA is about 3.2 billion USD and our trade volume with the USA is about 12 billion USD. We want to increase those figures."

Caglayan told reporters in Chicago, the first leg of his tour of four states of the USA, "we have prepared an action plan to boost our trade with the USA. We are going to determine the potential sectors. We will pay another visit ro the USA in October.

Although Turkey was ranked second in the world's construction sector behind the People's Republic of China, we could not yet enter the construction sector in the USA."

"There are six states in the USA with a great potential for us: New York, California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Georgia. We are going to visit four of them now: California, Illinois, Texas and Georgia. We have determined potential sectors for those states.

For instance, foodstuff, chemistry, leather, textiles, jewelry, machinery, electricity and electronics, automotive by industry and furniture for California; foodstuff, chemistry, leather, textiles, jewelry, non-iron metals for New York; chemistry, non-iron metals, machinery, electricity and electronics, automotive by industry and furniture for Texas; machinery, electricity and electronics, automotive by industry for Illinois, and textiles and non-iron metals for Florida," he said.

"We aim at increasing our exports to the USA to 20 billion USA within the next 2-3 years," Caglayan added.
 

AA