The Turkish economy


The economy is not a big election issue, but it badly needs cooling down

See article

Readers' comments


Fahrettin Tahir


Greece is ahomogenous country with a stagnant population and economy. She is subsidised to the tune of hundreds of billion dollars by the European Union. Under those conditions she has been stable since 1974. Do not forget the civil war of the 1940ies and the dictatorship of the 1970ies.

Turkey has a highly heterogenous population, who come not only from all countries of the Ottoman empire on three continents but also refugees from many countries beginning with Spain in the West and Manchuria in the east.

Some live in the 21st century other are barely out of the stone age.

The population has tripled in 50 years. She is undergoing a dramatic and rapid industrialisation process.

Her allies have supported a thousand billion expensive dollar civil war in an attempt to stop her economy. Now they support the AKP which American diplomats (wikileaks) think does not understand the world.

It is the AKP which by leaving Ataturks road has brought the country to the verge of civil war. There you are right.


Ahmet Tekelioglu, Cypriots would stay on topic if Turks stayed in their country, to fix their problems as opposed to invade, destruct, kill, ethnic cleanse, divide, colonize, and pretend that everything is ok.

Get out!

Remember, there is essentially no difference between the rights of an ethnic minority in Cyprus to those of a like-sized %-wise ethnic minority in Turkey.

Inevitably, solutions will be similar. It is in Turkey Minor's best interest to agree to a sensible solution in Cyprus either unitary or a federation solution. Because, that identical solution is coming home to Turkey Minor.


Freethinker, assume that it is 1974, you are Turkey's prime minister and you have just received the news that a coup inspired by Athens aims to unite Cyprus with Greece. What are your options, which one will you pick and why?


You ARE already here, remember? Turkey invaded in 1974 and has been illegally occupying Cyprus since then, after killing 7000+ people and ethnically cleansing 200,000 Greekcypriots from their ancestral homes.

You mean the occupied part (which is a huge military zone) of Cyprus, or the free part?


Freethinker, forget the Aegean islands. If Turkey does go bust, we'll all come to Cyprus instead. The government of Cyprus is likely to be more tolerant of an influx of jobless Turks. And on weekends we can cross over to the Greek side for a cuppa with you chaps.


ahmet tekelioglu you say " The only thing that changed between the seventies and the nineties is that Greece joined the EU. Had we made that mistake, and remember we have applied to join, we would be in the same mess as the Greeks right now."

if the big boys in the EU, germany, france etc really thought that we would be like greece 20 years after joining they would have accepted turkey with open arms. on the contrary they are scared that turkey , with its large population and manufacturing base, would be like germany and compete with them. this is what they don't like, they just want small countries in the club so that they can sell them cars etc. no free market there..


Enjoy the boom (and the articles about it) while it lasts!

After June, boom no more - just bust...and then you will be on the boats going illegally to the Aegean islands...

Hubris...for now - Nemesis, to follow...


Ozden and friends

Greece may default but the real losers are the major bond holders like Germany and Switzerland, like Argentina she will bounce back buoyed by a strong tourist sector and shipping industry, I would save your worry and sarcasm for Turkey with her mega high unemployment rate and derisory “minimum wage”, not to mention the country outside Istanbul and Aegean strip is third world and on the verge of civil war. Turkey has decades before she is even as developed as Greece, politically and economically, maybe this is the cause of your ire?


(B-) is not a good rating at all. Personally I am convinced that the EU alone is to blame for Greece's economic ruining. That the Greeks cheated with its statistics is irrelevant. If they were dishonest with statistics in the nineties then they must have been dishonest in the seventies as well. Besides, in the EU they are all frauds. How many EU countries are still observing the Maastricht criteria? Not many, I can tell you. The only thing that changed between the seventies and the nineties is that Greece joined the EU. Had we made that mistake, and remember we have applied to join, we would be in the same mess as the Greeks right now.


standard & poors reduced greece's rating to B-

i have just checked the rating list. greece will have to go to

CCC- , CC- ,C- and then D- which is "Payment default on financial commitments"

i don't think that will ever happen. let us not worry ourselves with things which are not considered to be problems. let us talk about the killing which was supposed to take in 1915, nearly 100 years ago. i am sure it is a more pressing subject. but meanwhile the greeks are suffering economically so much so that they may go hungry or not have money to buy petrol for their cars or even not have any petrol in the country at all.

well they could always eat tomatoes..


Freethinker / Antifon

What do you expect will happen on election day?
Do you have anything to say on Turkey's economy at all?

As one who is very much opposed to Turkey's bid for EU membership, I would like to draw everybody's attention to the contrast between Greece and Turkey. Back in the seventies, Greece's economy grew as fast as our own. As a matter of fact, Greece had a higher per capita income, too. After joining the EEC, Greece became an economic basketcase. The situation in Ireland, Portugal, Spain et allia would suggest that the problem was with the EU and not Greece. Therefore if Turkey had been admitted in the club along with Greece, then Turkey would join Greece in making rounds with a begging bowl, instead of being the object of envious speculation about economic overheating. Symphoneite?


"He points to the decision to keep fiscal and monetary stimulus going for too long. He reckons that nominal wage growth has hit 18% a year, domestic demand is rising by as much as 25% and credit growth is some 30-40%. Such numbers look unsustainable."

According to these numbers the adjustment will be harsh, especially as European economy, Turkey's main exports client, slows down. I would not bet on a strong Turkish lira...A yoy rise of domestic demand of 25% due to credit growth supported by external financing is very prone to collapse and is definitely not sustainable. The reason why there is such a tremendous external financing as many in these comments ask, is that the yields are too good for an OECD country. On the contrary, a brutal change of external investors stance towards Turkey should not be expected in the short to mid term as the population grows fastly, the market has great potential, the political environment is investor friendly and there are not so many alternative investment opportunities in the OECD countries.

Yavuz Otar

Mr Antifon said: "Some questions are rhetorical. They simply must be asked. Perhaps to put on display the nakedness of Turkish arguments?"

Rhetorics eh? Not only "some" questions, but "all" questions put forward by you are rhetorical. Then, allow me to give a rhetorical answer to your rhetorics:

Some answers are rhetorical. They simply must be answered. Perhaps to put on display the fogginess of Mr Antifon's arguments?


"even though some voters fret about its autocratic ways"

Neo-orientalism at its best. As long as neo-liberal policies ("trimming minimum wage") are implemented by the government The Economist does not give 2 cents about the autocatic ways of the ruling party...

British are coming!



we have to thank Mr Tekelioglu who at least was able NOT to corroborate the "stories" that Cypriot women were used as bait to lure Turkish soldiers to ambushes!!!

as I said in an earlier post, Cypriot women were too busy hiding or running away from the rapists after them (dressed in Turkish invading army uniforms)...the Cypriot men (civilians included) also had no time for ambushes, as they were being executed on the spot by the Turkish army...

Strange - none of our Turkish friends has mentioned Attila Olkatz's own admission on Turkish TV how he executed in cold blood a captive 18 year old Cypriot soldier!!!


Mr Tahir conveniently forgets that it was the Young Turks (including his hero Kemal) that inspired Hitler's Final Solution, by their (original, have to say) own solution of the Armenian genocide 1915, followed by the dershim massacres 1938, the Istanbul Pogrom 1955, the Cyprus invasion 1974, the Kurdish persecutions since 1980's etc...

It seems there is a continual pattern here,,,resembling Nazism...

By the way, in 2-3 weeks we will have Mavi Marmara II...interesting to see what happens...


Fahrettin Tahir, just yesterday you wrote this about Turkey Minor and its democratic deficiencies "big brother listening to telephones, taping what people do in their homes, government controlled press, internet censorship, police manufacturing evidence, people spending years in jail without knowing why, Kurds rioting without an end in sight ..."

Why are you accusing Cyprus of Nazism? If anything Turkey Minor seems to fit the bill perfectly by your own admission.

In Cyprus there are Cypriots, Greek speaking and Turkish speaking, both with their own unique Cypriot dialects.

Neither gCypriots nor tCypriots want you there.

Get out!



Products and events


Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines

