Oct. 22 – Turkey wants to learn from the Friuli Venezia Giulia system. The country, at a time of strong economic growth, is seeking technology and innovation models; and it has decided to focus on excellence examples in research and higher education from the Italian region, with which it intends to extend and consolidate several partnerships. The idea of new forms of cooperation between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Turkey emerged today during a meeting between the Turkish Ambassador Hakki Akil and the Regional Councilor for Programming Francesco Peroni. “Friuli Venezia Giulia has with Turkey – said Peroni – long-running and well-established relations that have considerable potential for new developments. Turkey has a dynamic economy, surely one of the emerging economies on a global scale. At the regional level, we intend to ‘accompany’ this process of growth acting as a director and co-ordination between various institutional actors. Our task in the field of international economic relations is to identify those areas of priority: Turkey is definitely one of them.” The identified areas are those of boating, research, science and technology even though plenty of other prospects remain viable, as Turkey has seen its GDP double in the last ten years, and by 2023 should be one of the ten largest economies in the world. Furthermore, Turkey is a young country (the average age is 29 years), with a strong propensity to consume, able to attract foreign investments, and with direct access to neighboring markets (Russia and countries of the former USSR, the Middle East but also Asia and Africa).
