OREANDA-NEWS. September 16, 2010. The Turkmen-Italian business forum took place at the Parahat Centre in the Turkmen capital. A high-level delegation of the Italian Republic led by Adolfo Urso, Deputy Minister for Economic Development had arrived in Ashgabat to participate in the forum.

The Italian delegation consisted of the representatives of the Institute of Foreign Trade, the Association of Construction Industry, heads of dozens of Italian companies operating in various sectors of the economy and journalists.

Specialists of the national ministries and departments, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Union of Manufacturers and Entrepreneurs represented Turkmenistan at the forum.

During the forum opening ceremony it was noted that this meeting that played a significant role in strengthening bilateral relations and contributing to maintaining the dialogue actively developed between Turkmenistan and the European Union would enable to expand traditional foreign economic relations and specify new fields of cooperation.

The first Turkmen-Italian business forum took place in Ashgabat last September. The dialogue was continued in a broader format during the official visit of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Italy. The Turkmen leader’s speech at the Turkmen-Italian business forum in Rome became, in fact, a presentation of Turkmenistan’s profound economic potential and its investment policy aimed at creating the enabling environment to attract foreign investments and intensify international cooperation.

This year the forum in Ashgabat had become a new step to broaden and deepen partnership between Turkmenistan and Italy. Forum participants noted that the prospects for Turkmen-Italian collaboration and its impressive potential provided the conditions most conducive to enhancing and diversifying productive contacts.

The meeting focused on a broad range of issues regarding Turkmen-Italian cooperation particularly in the power, trade and economic, construction, transport and communications sectors and tourism industry intensively developed in Turkmenistan nowadays.

A film about large-scale changes taking place in the country today, national development programmes and projects launched in all spheres of life of the Turkmen society helped Italian businessmen to get a clear view about the present day of Turkmenistan.

Upon learning about the current rates of economic growth and the indicators of the development of particular sectors, the long-term plans for enhancing the capacity of Turkmen industry, the Italian businessmen reaffirmed their willingness to collaborate in joint projects in key fields including on further modernization of the fuel and energy sector, development of transport and communications infrastructure, construction of new industrial and processing plants, etc.

The participants from Turkmenistan emphasized that the country was interested in attracting advanced technologies and know-how, deliveries of state-of-the-art machinery and equipment made in Italy meeting international standards and enhancing foreign trade and broadening its spectrum.

Cooperation with Italy in such sectors as shipbuilding, agriculture and agricultural products processing, urban planning and architecture was viewed as quite promising. The vast opportunities were opened up for Italian businessmen through developing chemical and petrochemical industries in Turkmenistan involving the use of resources of developed pools as well as commercial development of new deposits of chemical raw materials.

The issues under discussion included the prospects for encouragement of small and medium businesses, involvement of entrepreneurship in implementing national projects, current trends in this sector of the economy, mechanisms for developing new promising projects of cooperation. It was emphasized that the quality of ongoing reforms in this sector had an immediate impact on all the socioeconomic processes in our country. Therefore, entrepreneurship was to play a critical role in boosting Turkmen economy and enhancing international business contacts.

A major outcome of the bilateral meetings between Italian guests and specialists of Turkmen ministries and departments arranged in the framework of the forum was mutual belief that Turkmen-Italian cooperation had attractive and versatile prospects in various sectors of economy.

In conclusion the guests expressed gratitude to the forum organizers for a constructive and businesslike approach to organizing the event that had allowed identifying new short-range goals and objectives.