Speaking at the B20 Regional Consultation Forum hosted by Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, the chairman of the B20 Turkey and the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) in Jeddah, the Forum's chairman, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, said that in the last few years great steps have been taken in mutual economic and political relations, especially with Gulf countries.Babacan said that the best example of these relations is the economic cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. The Turkey-GCC High Level Strategic Dialog mechanism was established in 2008 and accordingly, various matters from economy to culture, security to political cooperation could be discussed extensively.Babacan said that within this mechanism, subcommittees for trade, investment, agriculture, transportation, energy, water, environment, tourism, health, culture and economy have been established and these committees have been meeting regularly to find solutions to the regional problems. He further said that this mechanism has improved cooperation between sectors.While discussions with the GCC started in 2005, they were interrupted in 2009. Babacan said that they want to revive the free trade agreement negotiation process and that such agreement would revitalize trade relations. The trade volume with GCC countries was around $16 billion, the investments of such countries in Turkey are around $10 billion and Turkish construction firms' investments in GCC countries is around $42 billion. Babacan said that while great steps have been taken to improve economic relations, these figures indicated that there is high potential to increase trade volume. "When we look at Latin America or Southeast Asia and other various regions around the world, North Africa and the Middle East have the lowest intra-regional trade volume. This means countries that speak the same language, that share a common culture and geography have fallen apart," Babacan said. He added that such a state of affairs is unacceptable and people, goods and capital should be able to move freely within these countries. He also noted that energy is another item that should move freely within these countries and the more there is economic dependency between these countries, the more there is chance to build political stability.He stressed that Turkey's efforts to cancel visas and sign free trade agreements with many countries in the region are to enable such free movement. "Every country has economic plusses and minuses, but when countries are open to each other, there will be a win-win relationship, from which all countries will benefit." He said that as the president of the G20 for 2015, Turkey has made many commitments and announced action plans, but now it is time to implement these and the support of everyone is crucial in this respect.Babacan remarked that as of today, the global economy's biggest problem is not budget deficits but a lack of credibility. "The sooner we close this gap, the sooner we can build an environment of trust, which in result will support the strong and sustainable support," Babacan said. He emphasized that the lack of credibility creates an obstacle in achieving sustainable growth; therefore, during Turkey's presidency, one of the targets will be overcoming this deficiency."As G20 governments, our target is to offer a vision to the business world and increase predictability and trust. Knowing whether our decisions have been in place or not, will also light the way for our future action. It is crucial for governments and business world to trust each other. But in order to establish this, we first need to establish an open dialog. Furthermore, we need the business world to adopt our policies. Therefore, we request you to inform us about your opinions and we would like to hear your suggestions. Your feedback is crucial," Babacan said. Highlighting that infrastructure investments require huge financial resources and many countries lack such resources, Babacan said that due to this fact, they will find ways to facilitate investor's involvement in infrastructure projects. Moreover, he also said they are currently working on cooperation models between the public and private sectors and alternative models such as asset-based financing. He underscored the support required from the member countries in order for these models to be put into force as well. "We expect B20 infrastructure and investment task force to assume an important role in this respect."Babacan also visited the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and met with the CEO of the IDB, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali al-Madani, during his visit.Hisarcıklıoğlu underlined that within the emerging trade and business cycle, it is not possible to be a "self-sufficient nation" and that the future of national economies depend on how integrated they are in the global markets and economy. The meeting in Jeddah is the first regional consultation meeting organized abroad by the B20 and along with Babacan, Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Ibrahim Abdulaziz al-Assaf, 150 businessmen from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and TOBB's board of directors attended the meeting. Other regional consultation meetings will be held in India, Singapore, China, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Mexico, South Africa and Russia.