(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-29 09:52

A Chinese commercial delegation signed import agreements worth US$210 million with Turkish businessmen in Turkey's largest city Istanbul on Tuesday.

The agreements were mainly involved in the fields of wool, copper, chrome, lead and polyacrylonitrile.

Turkish Deputy Secretary of Foreign Trade Ulker Guzel expressed hope that Chinese and Turkish companies could expand cooperation in sectors such as tourism and contracting services.

Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong, head of the delegation, said China's imports from Turkey reached US$500 million during the first 7 months of 2007, up about 80 percent over the same period of last year.

She said China would import more goods from Turkey and by the end of this year, the import figure would exceed US$1 billion for the first time.

Bilateral trade volume was about US$8 billion in 2006 while the import figure of China only accounted for five percent of the total.

The agreement were signed between a total of eight Chinese firms from both public and private sector and 14 Turkish companies from the Turkish Exporters' Assembly.