PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to arrive in the Turkish capital of Istanbul tomorrow for a five day state visit.

January Makamba, the Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation minister, unveiled this development at a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, saying that this will be the first visit by a Tanzanian leader in that country for14 years.

Five years ago, Mevlut Çavuşoğlu, then the Turkish Foreign minister, had accompanied President Tayyep Erdoğan during visits to Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar, in a rapid trip from January 22 to 25.

President Erdoğan’s conversations with his counterpart, President John Magufuli, laid the groundwork for the financing and engineering project capacity in rolling out the standard gauge railway (SGR) project, an iconic feature of recent development efforts.

It is comparable to the Julius Nyerere hydropower project (JNHPP), whose profile was mapped out at the time that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visited Tanzania in August 2017.

In his remarks at a joint press conference with President Magufuli, the Egyptian leader pointed out that a number of Egyptian companies are already working in Tanzania in the fields of construction, engineering consultancy and infrastructure as well as capacity building and expertise exchange.

Observers later realised the significance of the firms in terms of capital and engineering capacity, as Egyptian firms took the leading part in the major hydropower generation project.

Bilateral relations and business opportunities between the countries are strong, as trade volume has reached $ 22, the minister said, elaborating that President Samia is expected to witness the signing of agreements on several areas, including higher education scholarships, technology, document storage, science and innovation.

While in Turkey, President Samia will attend a business and investment conference in Istanbul, geared to increase the scope of investment and market access for Tanzanian agro-produce, he specified, elaborating that the balance of trade between the two countries will also be examined.

Turkey used to sell upwards of $250,000 worth of exports, with business increasing in the past six years, thus as of last year business reached $22m from $9m registered in 201, he pointed out.

Turkey is an important market for southern Europe and western Asia with considerable technological capacity from which Tanzania can learn, he stated.

At the moment the country’s most important experts to Turkey are agro-produce and gems. “We will look at new areas of cooperation in the conference prepared by the hosts,” he added.