Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set an ambitious task to increase trade turnover between Turkey and Russia to $100 billion. That is nearly four times more than the current trade volume between the two countries.

Bilateral trade already exceeds $25 billion, but that does not reflect the cooperation potential, according to Erdogan.

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The two countries are currently drafting an intergovernmental agreement on expanding settlements in national currencies. “It will ensure uninterrupted transaction services,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin after talks with his Turkish counterpart at the International Aviation and Space Salon, MAKS 2019.Turkey’s leader earlier announced that Ankara is preparing to conduct trade through national currencies with China, Russia, and Ukraine. It has also discussed a possible replacement of the US dollar with national currencies in trade transactions with Iran.

Moscow and Ankara are working closely in the energy sector, including such flagship projects as the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Turkey, Akkuyu, as well as the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, also known as the TurkStream. In March, land and sea sections of the pipeline were connected and it is set to become operational by the end of this year.

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The two countries announced they have created a €900 million joint investment fund which “will be extremely important to revitalize Russian-Turkish investment,” according to the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev.

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