Zeynel Abidin Erdem, Chairman of Turkish-Spanish Business Council, stated that they have collaborative action with Spanish authorities on privatization of Turkish ports. Expressing that they have presented projects to Spain on development of ports and yacht trailers, Erdem added, “ Spain was waiting for the stabilization of the flexible economy in Turkey. They are partially convinced after the positive indicators in Turkish economy.” Erdem told that after the Spanish success in aviation sector and railway improvement projects, they started to exchange works on ship manufacturing, ship trade and freight transportation among each other. He continued:

“We hope that the 500 thousand tones of goods transported to Spain over the sea will be increased to 1 million tones and the Spain-Turkey expedition which was decreased to 3 days will continue. Because our ships have been modernized and our operations got more sophisticated, a European style of loading has been launched in our ports. We can now forecast what to do or not to do in the maritime business a month beforehand. Formerly we were scheduling works prior to launching them. Sector representatives are now able to arrange their schedules a number of months in advance.”

Erdem also declared that he considered the 50 % reduction in port fees insufficient and did not count this as a success, expressing that decreasing the fees down to zero would be considered as a real success.