Bosnia's Presidency Visit To Turkey Highlights Ankara Role in Bosnia

The Croat and Bosniak members of the Bosnian Presidency Dragan Covic and Bakir Izetbegovic met yesterday with the Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan in the first of a two days visit to Ankara and Istanbul.

During their visit, the members of the Presidency will meet also with the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davatoglu and visit the Turkish Parliament, the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk and the University of Gazy in Ankara.

The trip highlights the importance of the relations between the two countries, seven months after Erdogan made his seventh official visit in Bosnia Herzegovina in eleven years.

Even though Turkey is still not one of the main partners of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its importance has been growing in recent years.

According to data provided by the Foreign Chamber of Commerce of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the commercial exchange between the two countries has increased sharply during the past five years.

"From 2010, the total import of Turkish products [which was around ? 250 million in 2014] in Bosnia increased by 50%, whereas the total export of Bosnian products to Turkey [? 117 million in 2014] almost triplicated", Aida Kapicija, the spokesperson of the Bosnian Foreign Chamber of Commerce, told BIRN.

"Bosnia mainly exports agricultural products, and imports textile products from Turkey", Kapicija explained.

Even if the commercial relationship between the two countries is growing, Turkey is not yet one important commercial partner for Bosnia, lagging behind other European countries like Germany, Italy, Austria and neighbours like Serbia and Croatia.

The situation is the same when it comes to direct Turkish investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"According to our data, investments...