Tense political spats between Turkey and Greece in recent years have steered clear of the two's commercial relations, with trade rising significantly last year.
The trade turnover between the two countries soared as much as 69.2% year-over-year to reach $5.2 billion, according to the data compiled by the Anadolu Agency (AA).
Exports to Greece jumped 73.3% year-over-year, enabling Turkey to register a trade surplus of approximately $1 billion.
According to the Turkish-Greek Chamber of Commerce data, Greece's imports from Turkey increased by 46% in 2021, reaching 2.3 billion euros (over $2.6 billion). With this increase, Turkey became the eighth biggest supplier country for Greece.
Although the trade balance of the two countries left a deficit for Greece, Athens also benefited from the increased trade volume. Greek exports to Turkey reached 1.8 billion euros in 2021, with an increase of 39%.
Ankara and Athens have been at odds over several issues for years, from conflicting Mediterranean maritime claims to air space and migration.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called for dialogue, stressing it would help solve some bilateral problems between the NATO members.
The acceleration in commercial relations is sometimes seen as an opportunity to soften the political atmosphere.
Before his official visit to Greece in May 2021, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, "I am going to Athens with a positive agenda," as he stressed Turkey wanted to improve economic ties with Greece.
During Çavuşoğlu's meeting with his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, there had been concrete steps on 25 articles in areas ranging from transport to energy, the environment, tourism and trade.
Thus, the cooperation-oriented positive agenda in the economy started to show its positive results in bilateral trade in 2021.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affected tourism all over the world, also disrupted tourism activities between Turkey and Greece.
Ferry services between the Greek islands and Turkey were halted for about two years within the framework of restrictions and have only resumed Tuesday.
Due to measures taken within the scope of the fight against COVID-19, restrictions were imposed on air and land transportation between the two countries, especially in the first year of the pandemic.
According to the data of the Greek Association of Tourism Enterprises (SETE), while the number of visitors from Turkey to Greece was 930,000 in 2018, this figure increased to 1.9 million in 2019. In 2020, with the effect of the pandemic, the number of visitors from Turkey dropped to only 232,000.
With the removal of restrictions on air and land transportation, the number of visitors from neighboring countries increased for both countries in 2021, but efforts are underway to ensure that tourism catches up with pre-pandemic activity.