Montenegro awaits investors from Turkey
Engin Esen - ISTANBUL
Turkey and Montenegro have agreed to make additional efforts to increase bilateral trade volume to $250 million by 2022, Perisa Kastratovic, Montenegro’s ambassador to Ankara, said yesterday.
He called on Turkish investors to grab opportunities in the southern Balkan country in an online meeting with a group of Turkish journalists.
“We want to share the opportunities in our country with Turkey through our investment call for the Turkish government and Turkish business people for 2021 and beyond. We aim to increase these opportunities in other areas such as mutual economic trade, culture, tourism, education, and production,” he said.
“We are openly calling Turkish companies and investors to reach the target of 250 million dollars in the bilateral trade volume of both countries by 2022,” he added.
The trade volume of Montenegro and Turkey was 122 million euros last year amid the pandemic, down 18.7 percent from the previous year.
Kastratovic also recalled that Montenegro is poised to receive natural gas from Azerbaijan via a pipeline route from Turkey.
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) began the transport of commercial gas from the giant Shah Deniz II field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe on Dec. 31 last year.
The 878-kilometer-long pipeline connects with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crosses Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.
The pipeline is expected to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.
Uğur Çimen, the chairperson of Leo Consultancy, underlined the factors that make Montenegro an attractive investment area.
“Factors such as availability of a qualified labor force in the country, having an appropriate corporate taxation system, legislation that is appropriate for foreign investments, strategic superiority due to its geographical location, as well as being included in the global trade network through the international agreements make Montenegro an attractive investment area that is open to foreign investments,” he said.
“Particularly tourism, energy, woodworking and furniture manufacturing, IT, metalworking and agriculture sectors are the key economic fields of Montenegro,” he added.
