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Turkish Economy Looks East to Counter Global Slowdown
By Yakup Kocaman
Turkey, the fifteenth largest economy of the world, is suffering in recent times from an unfinished business breakthrough. After a boom of six consecutive years, the Turkish economy is now confronting tough conditions of economic crises in the new world.
Image source: www.kwintessential.co.uk
Turkey’s major distress is lagging export numbers with European Markets, not toxic assets, bad loans, or Ponzi schemes. In December 2005, industry export figures declined sharply, by almost 25 percent. The significant decrease in demand from European markets hit exporters harshly; in 2008, Turkey’s export figures yielded USD 130 bn and import figures at USD 200 bn.
As the country loses ground in Europe, which is Turkey’s main foreign trade partner with 46 percent of total export, several Middle Eastern countries have arisen as new partners for the country. During the past six years, Turkish businesses have increased its trade volume with Muslim countries in Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Trade with the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) has reached a total of USD 58.2 billion as of November 2008, which is a 52% increase when compared with a total of $38.1 billion for the same period in 2007.
There has also been an increase in Turkey’s permanent business activities. According to the Turkish Treasury’s report, foreign direct investments from the Gulf region, Near and Middle Eastern countries have jumped from USD 495 million in the January – October 2007 period to USD 1.9 billion in the January-November 2009 period. In addition, Middle Eastern companies have established 471 new companies in Turkey throughout that time period.
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Tawhid: I must say that you are among the few who are so passionate to revive this great Ummah.
I couldn’t agree more. Allah has bestowed upon us enormous amount of natural resources, but we have to take the action. Allah says in Qura’an: Allah does not change a nations situation until they don’t change themselves.
Please keep enlightening us with your knowledge. If you like to become a contributor to this site please let me know, I would like to invite you to our community. The purpose of Al-Nahza is to create awareness among the youth whom the future of this Ummah depend upon.
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Good news, in fact all Muslim countries should learn more about all other muslim countries in the fields of science, culture, religion, society, sport, technology, research, business and commerce, among others.
When you ask most of today’s Muslims who are based in nonwestern countries, they would most probably have no clue as to what are the leading places of research and development, or universities in the Muslim world.
Inevitably they look towards the nonmuslim countries, mostly western countries, but in other cases sometimes Japan, sometimes Russian federation, and sometimes elsewhere when the Muslim world itself has many world class universities in its midst that doesn’t publicize or market itself well enough.
Iran is a case in point. It has so many universities of note and its students perform so exceptionally well in most unbiased international contests, yet due to political maneuvering and western interference, most nonwestern countries are either ignorant about Iran’s efforts or think of it negatively.
Also Saudi Arabia is establishing KAUST – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology – with an initial fund/endowment of over 37 billion riyals ($10 b) which is amongst the top 5 or 6 in the whole world. King Abdullah is intent on making it into a top notch world class research intensive university.
The same is happening to varying degrees and extents in Qatar, UAE, and some other Muslim countries too.
Let’s say if one is to purchase an automobile. How many of today’s Muslims from Indonesia to Morocco, from Albania to Mozambique, and from Mindanao to Xinjiang, would look towards Iran Khodra’s Runna? Or look towards a fellow OIC member state’s product or service for consideration?
The available trade statistics tell us that most of the Muslim countries’ trade is carried out with nonmuslim world, with the western world and the nonmuslim far east (Japan, Republic of Korea and China) often leading the list.
Awareness must be raised amongst Muslims.