Since early 2017, Turkey has been in a state of economic stability and accelerated growth rates, registering a rapid recovery from the country’s failed coup attempt in July 2016. Growth is expected to rise even higher if Turkey makes extensive structural reforms On macroeconomic policies, in order to achieve sustained economic growth in the medium term.
Turkey is rapidly moving towards achieving its 2023 goals as part of a comprehensive development plan to expand industrial growth focused on improving human capital. The plan was presented on February 21 at a ceremony held at the presidential compound in the presence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ben Ali Yildirim. The plan covered four years from 2019 to 2023, and was prepared by 43 specialized committees, working groups and more than 3,500 experts. To date, a total of 27,500 people have been covered in the framework of the overall plan.
The plan is due to be completed in June 2018 and will start implementation next year 2019. The plan is expected to include education and employment policies to transform and improve human capital.
The plan aims to ensure GDP of $ 2 trillion, increase per capita income to $ 25,000, achieve $ 500 billion in exports, reduce unemployment to 5 percent, and reduce inflation to a single-digit number permanently.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of Turkey’s development trip since 2002, President Erdogan highlighted the country’s 2023 vision as the most concrete example of planned development. “We have set the goal of becoming one of the top 10 global economies by 2023,” he said.
Erdogan stressed that the government focused on the development and improvement of Turkish natural resources, while making investments in the energy needed for rapid industrialization.
“Since 2002, the government has raised the per capita income from $ 3,500 to about $ 11,000,” he said.
Explaining the issue of development in Turkey over the past decade and a half, Erdogan said that the volume of public investment amounted to 17 billion Turkish liras (4.5 billion dollars) in 2002, while this figure rose to 128 billion Turkish liras (33.6 billion dollars) 2017.
In terms of public-private partnership projects, a total of 67 projects worth $ 11.4 billion were delivered in 1986-2002. In 2002-2017, there were 158 projects valued at $ 50.6 billion. These include the Mermari and Eurasia tunnels.
Erdogan said that while Turkey will continue its diversified economic program with a focus on digital transformation and intensive industrial production of technology, it will also continue to implement renewable energy projects to meet the needs of industry and growing population growth.
In 2002, Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP) was $ 236 billion, a figure that increased dramatically to $ 863 billion in 2017. Erdogan said the growth had generated 8.3 million additional jobs.
The proportion of the budget deficit to national income 15 years ago, 11.3 percent, fell to 1.5 percent in 2017. Moreover, interest expense accounted for 14.4 percent of national income and fell to 1.8 percent in 2017.
Erdogan stressed that the Government not only limited development to economic level but also concerned with social and spiritual development, and felt that Turkey had succeeded in developing the development approach within a human-centered framework.
“We have invested in infrastructure and in our people,” says Erdogan, “we are moving from the vicious cycle of the textile and agro-industries industry yesterday to a technology-intensive industry, and we need to increase the share of technology industries while we invest in energy. We are also trying to develop our natural resources. ”
He also explained in detail the progress made on the Turkish defense industry, stressing that the average domestic resources in the defense industry, which reached 20 percent in 2002 has now risen to more than 65 percent.
“We need to be able to produce unmanned tanks, and we will do that,” he said.
Turkey has invested heavily in the defense industry and has increased the number of defense projects over the past 15 years. It has also increased the rate of domestic production as Turkey uses domestic resources to develop defense projects and equipment.
The number of defense projects, which reached 66 in 2002, rose to 600 today, while defense projects totaled $ 60 billion.
External dependency, which was about 80 percent 16 years ago with nationalization of projects, also fell. The Turkish defense industry now has about $ 6 billion in production and $ 2 billion in export capacity.