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- Economy
-
- Overview: The impressive stream of benefits from the economic
- reforms that Turkey launched in 1980 have begun to peter out.
- Although real growth in per capita GDP averaged 5% annually
- between 1983 and 1988, recent economic performance has fallen
- substantially. Moreover, inflation and interest rates remain
- high, and a large budget deficit will continue to provide
- difficulties for a country undergoing a substantial
- transformation from a centrally controlled to a free market
- economy. Agriculture remains an important economic sector,
- employing about half of the work force, accounting for 18% of
- GDP, and contributing 19% to exports. The government has
- launched a multibillion-dollar development program in the
- southeastern region, which includes the building of a dozen
- dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to generate electric
- power and irrigate large tracts of farmland. The planned tapping
- of huge additional quantities of Euphrates water has raised
- serious concern in the downstream riparian nations of Syria and
- Iraq. The Turkish economy emerged from the Gulf War of early
- 1991 in stronger shape than Ankara had expected. Although the
- negative effects of the crisis were felt primarily in the
- politically sensitive southeast, aid pledges by the coalition
- allies of more than $4 billion have helped offset the burden.
-
- GDP: purchasing power equivalent - $198 billion, per capita
- $3,400; real growth rate 1.5% (1991 est.)
-
- Inflation rate (consumer prices): 71.1% (1991)
-
- Unemployment rate: 11.1% (1991 est.)
-
- Budget: revenues $41.9 billion; expenditures $49.7 billion,
- including capital expenditures of $9.9 billion (1992)
-
- Exports: $13.0 billion (f.o.b., 1990)
-
- commodities: industrial products (steel, chemicals) 81%;
- fruits, vegetables, tobacco and meat products 19%
-
- partners: EC countries 49%, US 7%, Iran 5%
-
- Imports: $22.3 billion (c.i.f., 1990)
-
- commodities: crude oil, machinery, transport equipment,
- metals, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, plastics, rubber,
- fertilizers, grain
-
- partners: EC countries 49%, US 7%, Iran 5%
-
- External debt: $49.0 billion (1990)
-
- Industrial production: growth rate 10% (1990 est.); accounts
- for 29% of GDP
-
- Electricity: 14,400,000 kW capacity; 44,000 million kWh
- produced, 750 kWh per capita (1991)
-
- Industries: textiles, food processing, mining (coal, chromite,
- copper, boron minerals), steel, petroleum, construction,
- lumber, paper
-
- Agriculture: accounts for 18% of GDP and employs about half of
- working force; products - tobacco, cotton, grain, olives, sugar
- beets, pulses, citrus fruit, variety of animal products;
- self-sufficient in food most years
-
- Illicit drugs: one of the world's major suppliers of licit
- opiate products; government maintains strict controls over
- areas of opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw
- concentrate
-
- Economic aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $2.3
- billion; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral
- commitments (1970-89), $10.1 billion; OPEC bilateral aid
- (1979-89), $665 million; Communist countries (1970-89), $4.5
- billion; note - aid for Persian Gulf war efforts from coalition
- allies (1991), $4.1 billion; aid pledged for Turkish Defense
- Fund, $2.5 billion
-
- Currency: Turkish lira (plural - liras); 1 Turkish lira (TL) =
- 100 kurus
-
- Exchange rates: Turkish liras (TL) per US$1 - 6,098.4 (March
- 1992), 4,171.8 (1991), 2,608.6 (1990), 2,121.7 (1989), 1,422.3
- (1988), 857.2 (1987)
-
- Fiscal year: calendar year
-
-