Turkey, Malaysia ink free trade agreement

Turkey and Malaysia signed a free trade agreement in Ankara on Thursday, urging for closer bilateral ties. Turkey plans to develop bilateral ties with countries in the Asia-Pacific region where their economic and trade relations are gaining further importance, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said at a press conference in Ankara with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Erdogan also said that the two countries will establish a " group of privileged," which would assume think-tank duty in order to share ideas on political, academic and economic issues between the two countries. Razak, for his part, praised highly of the free trade agreement, saying Malaysia targets to increase the trade volume to five billion U.S. dollars from the current 1.5 billion. Earlier on Thursday, Razak addressed the Turkey-Malaysia business luncheon, stressing that the free trade agreement will strengthen the economic and technical cooperation between two countries in small and medium enterprises, services, agriculture and food, healthcare, energy and e-commerce.