Turkey-Somali Bussiness Forum held in Istanbul

Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK)-sponsored first ever meeting of the Turkey-Somalia Business and Investment Forum which took place on Monday.

Following this, a High Level Partnership Forum (HLPF) between the two countries will take place on Feb. 23-24.

speaking at the conference, Turkey deputy prime minister, Lutfi Elvan called on Turkish Bussiness people to invest Somalia and benefit from its natural resources.

Elvan said Turkey’s investment in Somalia has reached around $100 million, “This number should be accepted as a beginning,”

Ankara has launched various development and infrastructure projects in the country in recent years, ranging from health and sanitation projects to the construction of roads and buildings.

Turkey will encourage “entrepreneurs to make investments in fishing, construction and agriculture fields in particular in Somalia,” Elvan said.

“We believe in Somalia’s development with all our hearts. We have decided to stand together with Somali and its people,” he added.

Turkey’s trade volume with African countries has increased to $19.4 billion in 2015, while it was only $4 billion in 2000, Omer Cihad Vardan, president of Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, said at the forum.

“We, as businessmen, will always support our brothers in order to establish a peace and a government in Somalia,” Vardan said.

“We are ready to give every kind of support in order to make Somalia’s resources to be used in its economy,” he added.

Turkish aid agencies are also very active in the country.

Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) has built more than 6,000 wells in Africa since 1992, according to the foundation’s deputy chairman, Hasan Aynaci.

Around one-third of Somali land — which is some 630,000 square kilometers in total — is suitable for farming.

Three times the size of the land border, the sea off of Somalia has 2 million square kilometers of exclusive economic zones.The Somali economy is based on agriculture and animal husbandry.

In fact, these two sectors compose 40 percent of Somalia’s gross domestic product (GDP), while income from exports makes up more than 50 percent.
Total exports from Somalia are around $600 million annually, while imports are $1.5 billion a year.

Somalia’s primary exports are sugar, corn, fish, coal and bananas. There are also some 40 million livestock in Somalia. During 2015, 5 million livestock from Somalia were exported to the Gulf States.

In Somalia, sectors such as food processing and packaging, energy, agricultural equipment, construction materials, textiles, and clothing workshops all present great partnership opportunities for potential investors.

Since 1991, however, all government institutions in Somalia have been in a state of collapse.

There are currently two major obstacles to the re-creation of the Somali state. One is that the state has no income. Its 2016 budget was $220 million. Half of this came from donations. In fact, the state can only earn $100 million for itself.

The second obstacle is terrorism springing from the al-Shabaab group. Most recently, al-Shabaab carried out a bombing on a Daallo Airways passenger plane flying from Mogadishu to Djibouti.