Location Bratislava On February 6th, 2013 Slovak-Turkish Business Forum was held in Bratislava on the occasion of the official visit of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey to Slovakia. The event, attended by more than 130 Slovak and almost 100 Turkish companies, have been focused particularly on strengthening the trade cooperation between the two countries. Mutual relations between the Republic of Turkey and Slovakia are very good, nevertheless the business exchange still shows potential reserves. This is the premise that stated the prime ministers of both countries - Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Robert Fico, who formally closed this all day event with their speeches. Slovak Prime Minister sees opportunities for possible cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector - for the Turkish Slovak know-how and scientific expertise in the nuclear sector might be interesting. "The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the General Directorate of Incentive Implementation and foreign investment, Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Turkey and the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency is one of the very positive steps that we see today and we strongly believe it will strengthen our mutual cooperation, said Robert Šimončič, CEO of SARIO agency which prepared this event in cooperation with Turkish partners, the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Bratislava and SCCI. In last 10 years the bilateral trade exchange between the two countries grew 11fold, with turnover currently amounting up to about $ 1.6 billion (1.18 billion Euros). R.T. Erdogan, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, however, expressed confidence that the mutual balance of trade between the two countries will increase in 2015 to reach $ 5 billion. Slovakia according to him, is one of the 5 countries that have a priority for Turkey to develop cooperation with. The forum was attended mainly by companies from the automotive, furniture, precious metals and natural stones, energy, logistics, legal services, construction, food processing, petrochemical, aviation, electronics and engineering industries. The representatives of Turkish companies arrived at the event also from neighboring countries - Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria. In additions to both Prime Ministers, the guests of honor included Mehmet Zafer Caglayan, the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Turkey and Tomáš Malatinský, the Minister of Economy of the SR.
