Turkish business leader praised Arab Spring

President of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) Rifat Hisarciklioglu said in his speech on the 8th Turkish-Arab Economic Forum that the geographic cooperation is important to benefit from the new energy resources in the eastern mediterranean. Hisarciklioglu thanked Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in the name of Turkish private sector for his support of Turkish-Arab relations for eight years. Hisarciklioglu noted that the world developed politically and economically very fast in the last three years and added, "Our region feels the changes which came with the Arab uprising strongly. This process give us a historical opportunity to make our region stable and prosperous." Hisarciklioglu reminded that Turks and Arabs live together for centuries and pointed out that they "reached a significant progress with the Arab world in the last three decades. We gained momentum in the trade relations since 2002. The export in Arab countries increased 11 fold in the last decade and the import from Arab countries 12 fold. The level of bilateral trade approached 50 billion dollar in 2012. The number of Arab tourist who visited Turkey was 700.000 thousand a decade ago and reached now 2.5 millon."