International Property News from property markets around the globe supplied by the IPD News Desk.

Turkey Property IS on the rise

Turkey aims at boosting the trade volume with Egypt to ten billion USD from an current amount of three billion USD, said Rifat, Chairman of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges as well as Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey.

Speaking to reporters in Cairo where he heads a group of Turkish businesspeople, he said Turkey's immediate region in reach with a three-hour flight offered a market worth of nine trillion USD, with 51 countries, 1 billion people and 5 trillion USD foreign trade volume, adding, "Our target is this nine-trillion USD market and there is no need to fear."
He went on to say Turkish investments in Egypt currently totalled 1.5 billion USD, adding that they aimed to increase the figure up to 2 billion USD next year. More details on Turkey >>

Source; Black Sea Grain

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu signed a partial visa-free deal with Portugal this week during an official visit to Lisbon. This is the latest in a line of visa-free deals agreed by Turkey in the last 18 months, and the countries involved include Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Albania, Libya, Kosovo and Sudan.

The agreement is partial in so far as only citizens who have special or service passports in either country, will be able to travel to the other without a Turkish visa, and only for one 90-day period every six months. The agreement is still pending ratification in the parliaments of both countries. Turkey is getting increasingly frustrated with the EU's failure to lift visa requirements for its citizens, and has stepped up calls for it to do so since visa-free deals were agreed with Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia in December last year.

The Turkish business community is increasingly annoyed at being what it describes as “being left out in the cold.”

Part of their grievance stems from a European Court of Justice ruling which said that Turkish business people providing services in EU member states should be able to enter without having to obtain visas using legislation in the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement agreed in 1973.

A visa-free deal would be very beneficial to Turkish businesses operating or hoping to start operating in Europe, as well as to the overseas property and tourism industries.