OREANDA-NEWS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin to a technology festival in Istanbul in September. He voiced his invitation, speaking with a greeting on the occasion of the opening of the International Aviation and Space Salon.

“This year we are holding the Technofest aviation, air, technical festival in Istanbul”, he said. “Last year we held such a festival for the first time, an exhibition in which more than 550 thousand people took part, this year we will hold the second festival from September 17 to 22, in which we expect more than 1 million participants to participate. We invite all the Russian people to this festival and, first of all, Mr. President Putin".

Erdogan said that under the slogan "Future in Heaven" in Turkey in recent years, much has been done to develop the aviation industry. In particular, he recalled that Turkish airlines are the world's leading air carrier. He specified that the airline has 258 routes to more than 100 countries. The Turkish leader also spoke about the large-scale construction of an airport in Istanbul. "We hope that when the construction of all stages of this Istanbul airport is completed, we will host 200 million passengers annually at this airport", the Turkish president said, noting that this would automatically put Turkey among the most advanced countries in the field of aviation.

In addition, the President sets the task to increase trade turnover with Russia at times and bring it up to $ 100 billion. "Trade between our countries already exceeds $ 25 billion, but our task is to reach the figure of $ 100 billion", Erdogan said at the opening ceremony International Aerospace Salon. The Turkish leader emphasized that every year Turkey is increasing the export of aerospace products. “In 2018, the volume of exports in the aerospace field amounted to $ 0.5 billion”, he said.