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ISTANBUL, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's top diplomat in Istanbul stressed on Thursday evening that his country is not after deliberately a surplus with its trading partners, including Turkey.
Consul general Qian Bo told a group of Turkish academicians and entrepreneurs that China has become the largest trading partner of more than 130 countries around the world, but it has never been seeking deliberately a surplus with them.
As Turkey's huge imbalance in trade with China is the biggest problem in bilateral economic ties, Qian noted that Beijing has taken a series of measures to make more purchases from Turkey, as part of efforts to achieve a healthy and sustainable bilateral trade.
China is currently Turkey's second largest trading partner, with a trade volume hitting 27.24 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 and 20.925 billion dollars in the first nine months in 2016, up 3.35 percent over the previous year, according to official figures released by Turkey.
Qian attributed the imbalance in trade with Turkey mainly to the differences with China on industry and commodity structures.
He also spoke of ongoing closer consultations between China and Turkey, launched under the Belt and Road initiative, on advancing cooperation on such key projects as a high-speed rail linking Kars in Turkey's east with the western Turkish city of Edirne, and the construction of a third nuclear power plant in Turkey.
