Turkish President Abdullah Gul and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Friday appealed for a boost in trade between their two countries, notably in the energy sector.
"We must take our relations to a new level," Gul said after talks with the Brazilian head of state, the first to visit Turkey.
"There is great potential and we have to take advantage of it," Gul said, noting that the value of trade between Turkey and Brazil comes to only $2 billion a year.
Gul pointed specifically to the energy sector, where he said there were "major possibilities for cooperation." He hailed an agreement on oil and gas exploration signed this year between Turkish Petroleum Corp., or TPAO, and Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras.
"The TPAO-Petrobras partnership is very important. About $800 million is to be invested and we think that in the next few years it will be possible to extract oil from the Black Sea."
Lula said that his government wanted "Petrobras to become the world's leading oil company...and for that to happen, it has to invest and work in other countries."
He was to complete his visit to Turkey later Friday in a meeting with the head of the Turkish parliament and a dinner with Gul before leaving for Brazil at the end of a tour that has also taken him to Saudi Arabia and China.