Turkey Economy 1997

Economy - overview Turkey's dynamic economy is a complex mix of modern industry and commercealong with traditional village agriculture and crafts. The economy has a strongand rapidly growing private sector, yet the state still plays a major rolein basic industry, banking, transport, and communication. The current economicsituation is marked by strong growth coupled with worsening imbalances. RealGDP expanded by about 7% in 1996 but inflation rose to 80%, the current accountdeficit reached about 3% of GDP, and the public sector fiscal deficit probablytopped 10% of GDP, leading to speculation that the country could be headedtoward a repeat of its 1994 financial crisis. To some extent, Ankara is caughtin a vicious circle because half of all central government revenue in 1996went to pay interest on the national debt. The government that took officein July 1996 - an unusual coalition of Prime Minister ERBAKAN's Islamic WelfareParty and Deputy Prime Minister CILLER's conservative True Path Party - istrying to solve the fiscal problem by greatly accelerating Turkey's privatization program. It has proposed a balanced budget for 1997, although this is widelyregarded as over optimistic because it is based on earning more privatizationrevenue in one year than Turkey has earned over the last decade. Ankara istrying to increase trade with other countries in the region but most of Turkey'strade is still with OECD countries. Despite the implementation in January1996 of a customs union with the EU, foreign direct investment in the countrytotaled only about half a billion dollars, perhaps because potential investorswere concerned about the prospects for economic stability.

GDP purchasing power parity - $379.1 billion (1996 est.)

GDP - real growth rate 7% (1996 est.)

GDP - per capita purchasing power parity - $6,100 (1996 est.)

GDP - composition by sector
agriculture : 15%
industry: 33%
services: 52% (1995)

Inflation rate - consumer price index 80% (1996)

Labor force
total: 21.3 million
by occupation: agriculture 47%, services 33%, industry 20% (1995)
note: about 1.5 million Turks work abroad (1994)

Unemployment rate 6.3% (April 1996); another 6.3% officially considered underemployed

Budget
revenues: $32.9 billion
expenditures: $50.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $2.8 billion (1996)

Industries textiles, food processing, mining (coal, chromite, copper, boron), steel,petroleum, construction, lumber, paper

Industrial production growth rate 6.5% (1996)

Electricity - capacity 20.86 million kW (1994)

Electricity - production 86.3 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity - consumption per capita 1,206 kWh (1995 est.)

Agriculture - products tobacco, cotton, grain, olives, sugar beets, pulses, citrus; livestock

Exports
total value : $22 billion (f.o.b., 1996 est.)
commodities: textiles and apparel 40%, steel products 9%, foodstuffs 20% (1995)
partners: Germany 23%, Russia 6%, US 7%, Italy 7% (1995)

Imports
total value: $42 billion (f.o.b., 1996 est.)
commodities : machinery 23%, fuels 13%, raw materials 11%, foodstuffs 7% (1995)
partners: Germany 16%, US 10%, Italy 9%, France 6%, UK 5% (1995)

Debt - external $75.8 billion (1996)

Economic aid
recipient: ODA, $195 million (1993)
note: aid for Gulf war efforts from coalition allies (1991), $4.1 billion;aid pledged for Turkish Defense Fund, $2.5 billion

Currency Turkish lira (TL)

Exchange rates Turkish liras (TL) per US$1 - 110,119 (January 1997), 81,405 (1996),45,845.1 (1995), 29,608.7 (1994), 10,984.6 (1993), 6,872.4 (1992)

Fiscal year calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Turkey on this page is re-published from the 1997 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Turkey Economy 1997 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Turkey Economy 1997 should be addressed to the CIA.