MÜSİAD President Abdurrahman Kaan commented on the Free Trade Agreement signed between Turkey and the United Kingdom.

President Kaan's statement is as follows:

As you know, in the Turkish economy, which grew by 6.7 percent in the third quarter of the year, consumption expenditures contributed 5.5 points to growth, while investments contributed 5.2 points. Unfortunately, net foreign demand during this period dragged growth down by 9.1 points. At MÜSİAD, we emphasized that for the Turkish economy's positive growth trend to become permanent, net foreign demand must also return to positive, and we stated that defining a new export strategy in the coming period would be the right step.

In this context, we attach great importance to the Free Trade Agreement signed between Turkey and the United Kingdom. Indeed, the United Kingdom, which exported the most to Turkey with $10.9 billion in 2019 and $9.0 billion between January and October 2020, is among the countries with which we have a foreign trade surplus.

We believe this agreement will ensure we maintain our regional market share and even surpass our current level, thus preserving the gains brought by the Customs Union. We believe this FTA, which we see as the first step towards further deepening Türkiye's relations with the United Kingdom and preserving our country's competitiveness in this market, will be highly effective in positively impacting net foreign demand growth figures for 2021.

As MÜSİAD, we extend our gratitude to all the government officials who contributed to the signing of this agreement, which has been on our agenda for a long time, especially to the Minister of Trade of the Republic of Turkey, Ruhsar Pekcan.