OREANDA-NEWS. September 10, 2015. Ankara hosted the international conference “Business Group of Twenty” (B20) as a preparatory phase to the G20 Summit which will happen on November 15-16, 2015 in Antalya. The “Russia-Turkey” round table took place under the conference agenda, and the participant of which highlighted a positive contribution of the Akkuyu NPP construction project in development of the Russia and Turkey relationship.

The event was attended by Rifat Hisarcikl?oglu, President of the Union of Chambers and Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and Head of the B20 Executive Committee, Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Andrey Karlov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation I the Republic of Turkey, Edgar Haklund, deputy of the official representative of ROSATOM in the Republic of Turkey, Alp Togay, lead expert for methodology and business process optimization of AKKUYU NUCLEAR JSC and managers of various companies.

Rifat Hisarcikl?oglu, President of the Union of Chambers and Exchanges of Turkey addressed a welcoming remark to the round table attendees. He underlined that Turkey lays special emphasize to the relationships with Russia. According to him the balance of forces on the international arena has changed in XXI century, and the economic activities are shifting from west to east. The Head of TOBB gave an opinion that Russia and Turkey will play one of the key roles in the changing international environment. Hisarcikl?oglu underlined the high level of economic cooperation of the both countries: "Russia is intending to invest US\\$ 20 billion to the project of the first Turkish nuclear power plant. It means that the strategic Russian-Turkish cooperation has moved to a whole new level".

Alexander Shokhin, RSPP President, reminded that two years earlier the leaders of Russia and Turkey set up a target to increase the commodity turnover between the two countries up to US\\$ 100 billion by 2020. At the same time a slight recession in the bilateral trade relationships took shape in 2014. "Our common task is to identify reasons of the trade recession and overcome the existing problems. We need to act without looking back at macroeconomic indicators", Alexander Shokhin said. He also touched upon the topic of implementation of the bilateral projects: "Implementation of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant construction project in Turkey must act as a catalyst for development of relations between our two countries. As of today there are possibilities to advance cooperation in telecommunication, metallurgy and other industries". Andrey Karlov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Turkey, underlined that entrepreneurs of the two countries have to fulfill important and demanding challenges.

Following the outcomes of the round table the representatives of TOBB and RSPP have signed an action plan regarding the trade and economic cooperation valid until the end of 2016. The plan implies 16 various mutual events.