Special Turkey

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ARE THEY PREPARING A SEQUEL TO THE TURKISH ECONOMIC MIRACLE?

Turkey is the place where East meets West. The Republic of Turkey, led since 28 August 2014 by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, lies literally at the crossroads of South-West Asia and South-Eastern Europe. Turkey as a country has grown rapidly over the last century. At the start of the 20th century, the country had a mere 12 million inhabitants, but that figure is now 82 million. This means that the number of inhabitants (70% of whom live in urban areas) is now six times bigger.

The best way to understand this state is to look at a map of Turkey. This makes it clear that the vast majority of the country lies geographically in Asia, including the capital Ankara. Only a small area lies geographically in Europe. We’re talking here about the western part of the biggest city, Istanbul, and the area to the west of it. This latter part forms a mere 3% of the country’s entire territory.

Geography explains a lot

The Asiatic and European parts of the country are separated from each other by the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus, which together link the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea. Geography can help to explain why the country is sometimes considered to be part of Europe for political and historical reasons, but is more often considered to be part of Asia for cultural and religious reasons. Let’s briefly list the neighbouring countries Turkey borders on Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria and the country has a total of 6530km of coastline.

Member of the G20

If we consider the country economically, the fact that this state is a member of the G20 speaks volumes. This means that Turkey belongs to the group which comprises the 20 biggest economies in the world. Moreover, there are other indicators which show the significance of the country. It was a co-founder of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Moreover, it has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1949 and of NATO since 1952 and has been conducting admission negotiations with the European Union since 2005.

As regards industry it is particularly interesting to see how the country enjoyed spectacular economic growth after a huge crisis in 2001. The growth was particularly explosive between 2002 and 2007 when Turkey was among the fastest growing economies in the world and rose from 26th to 15th place on the list of the world’s biggest economies. Turkey, too, did not escape the monetary crisis of 2008, but the economy recovered very strongly from 2010 onwards.