Prime Minister Katainen, who will be accompanied by Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb and Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen, is scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Wednesday in Ankara. Bilateral relations, political mediation, European Union-Turkey membership negotiations and international issues are among the issues to be discussed during the meeting. Katainen is also set to meet with Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek. Katainen and his official delegation will attend a working dinner with Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan and other ministers to discuss several topics, including business cooperation between Finnish and Turkish companies. Issues related to the development of economic relations between Turkey and Finland will be on the agenda of the dinner with Babacan. The Finnish prime minister and Stubb are also scheduled on Thursday to attend a Turkey-Finland business seminar in İstanbul organized by the Finland Trade Center (Finpro), which is a global organization that supports the success and growth of Finnish companies in the international market.
Katainen, Stubb and Räsänen will be accompanied by a delegation of Finnish businessmen, including senior representatives of companies operating in the energy, environmental, health, information technology, mining, metal and forestry sectors. The delegation, coordinated by Finpro and consisting of approximately 40 export firms, also includes representatives from companies operating in the financial, educational, business services and logistics sectors.
