(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Qabil Ashirov Read more
Turkiye and Russia are planning to establish a joint bank to
overcome the problems they face in trade and payment transactions
between the two countries. This issue has also been brought up
before, but no concrete progress has been made.
A Turkish banking industry source stated that this issue is
still being discussed, but no clear decision has been made yet. It
is known that Turkish banks have recently started to close the
accounts of Russian companies.
This situation negatively affects economic relations between the
two countries. The Russian-Turkish Dialogue Association, on the
other hand, stated that they had no information that Turkish banks
were following a policy of collectively closing the accounts of
Russian companies.
Establishing a joint bank between Turkiye and Russia could be an
important step to increase the trade volume between the two
countries and provide ease of payment.
The correspondent of Azernews learned the
opinion of the MUSIAD board member and former banker, Ünsal Sözbir,
on the issue. The expert noted that the practice of countries with
strong trade establishing joint banks to increase trade further and
enhance their cooperation is a structure that has many examples in
the world. The most important previous example of Russia and
Turkiye establishing a joint bank is the Black Sea Trade and
Development Bank ( Not only two
countries, but 11 countries, including Azerbaijan, came together
here to set up a joint bank.
"These countries are Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria,
Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkiye and Ukraine
This bank, which was established with the intention of creating
a regional power, has made significant contributions to its member
countries so far," Ünsal Sözbir pointed out.
He said that according to the report prepared by the Turkish
Embassy in Moscow, the trade volume between the two countries has
increased.
The former banker noted that Russia's exports to Turkiye
amounted to 16.2% of total imports (according to 2022 data), and
the share of exports from Turkiye to Russia is around 3.7%.
"The commencement of the Russia-Ukrainian war significantly
impacted this trade, and Turkiye was the country most affected by
the restrictions imposed on Russia by Western countries. Reasons
such as removing Russia from the SWIFT system, closing local credit
cards to international payments, and removing it from the money
transfer system apparently targeted Russia, but they affected
Turkiye the most negatively. It is based on extremely reasonable
justifications for Turkiye to take steps to minimise this impact,"
he said.
Ünsal Sözbir also noted that it is a fact that one of the
efforts to increase trade and prevent existing commercial relations
from being negatively affected will be solving the problems
experienced in payment systems. The development of trade with local
currencies and the creation of a banking infrastructure to mediate
this will ensure it.
He added that, despite the fact that there has not been enough
official explanation about what stage the negotiations are at, it
would be in the favour of both countries if such a thing were
considered and designed.
As for the benefit of this bank to the economies of neighbouring
countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, and so on, Sözbir pointed
out that Turkiye and Russia are the two major countries and
economies of the region.
"Strategists predict that local economic cooperation will
increase as a trend within the developments that are likely to take
place in the next 10 years. Within the framework of this
assessment, the economies of Turkey and Russia have a total size
approaching 4 trillion US dollars. Both countries have an active
and decisive role in their environment. These two large economies
have very important effects not only on themselves but also on
countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, which are in their
natural hinterland, and they will continue to do so. It is also
very clear that financial cooperation, which will improve trade and
economic cooperation, will also accelerate this effect, and this
will also benefit the surrounding countries," Ünsal Sözbir
concluded.
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