Saeed Al Khotani Saudi Gazette RIYADH – The Deputy Governor of the Turkish region of Bursa, Samet Ercoskun, will be arriving in Riyadh tonight (Sunday night) heading a 14-member businessmen delegation from the region for a week- long visit to the Kingdom. The senior Turkish official will lead workshops, starting from Monday at Four Seasons Hotel for promoting investments in tourism and some other fields in his region. In the workshops, Turkish businessmen will meet with their Saudi colleagues to explore and learn about the prospects of business cooperation and investment in the region. He and his delegation will also visit the Turkish pavilion at Riyadh Travel Fair to be opened on Monday evening at the hotel. After Riyadh, Ercoskun and the delegation will leave for Jeddah where they will meet Dr Fahd Al Fuhaid, the President of Jeddah-based Arab Organization of Tourism, an affiliate of League of Arab States. In 2012, the member states at the organization made a decision to choose Bursa City, the capital of the Buras region, as the capital of Arab and Muslim tourism for 2013. Matters related to choosing Bursa City as the venue of Islamic-Arabic capital expected to be discussed with Dr Al Fuhaid, according to Hasan Ess, the Turkish Tourism and Cultural attaché in the Kingdom. Bursa, fourth major Turkish city, has showed strong interest in developing its business relations especially in tourism with Arab world, and in particular Saudi Arabia. Also, in 2012, the Arab Organization of Tourism in collaboration with the Governorate of Bursa announced the establishment of a private airline to promote tourism and direct flow of passengers to the Bursa airport, without a need to pass by Istanbul airport. It was agreed that $5 million of the $30 million capital of the airlines will be paid by the people of Bursa, while the remaining will be collected from both Arab, Saudi, and Gulf states investors, Bursa City once was the first capital of the Ottoman Caliphate for decades. The region of Bursa is the largest single economic and industrial contributor to the Turkish economy, especially in the fields of tourism and industry, providing the nation with more than half of its production and national income. Contribution of Bursa Province to the national economy of Turkey includes manufacturing 60 percent of the vehicle, 70 percent of textile and ready-made clothes, 70 percent of bottled water, in addition to being a center for silk production. Its annual exports are worth $30 billion of the current total Turkey exports of $155 billion.
