It was almost exactly 20 years ago when Kemal Dervis told a group of reporters in Ankara that in “in 20 years”, Turkey would be one of Europe’s two biggest economies alongside Germany.
Shortly after that remark, however, Dervis’ brief tenure as Turkey’s “economic miracle worker” in Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s government was over. Dervis was not to become Turkey’s Ludwig Erhard, the man who shaped West Germany’s postwar economic revival, and Ecevit himself soon took his own curtain call.
Yet, at the time Dervis’ prediction didn’t sound too outlandish.
The radical reforms started under Prime Minister and President Turgut Ozal were given a wider scope helping to curb runaway inflation and attracting the largest inflow of direct foreign investment in Turkish history. The corruption that had gangrened the state-dominated rentier economy was also brought under control, while Dervis’ clever measures saved the banking system from collapse.
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So, why is Turkey today, with a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) approximately one-third that of Spain, still in the lower league in Europe?
Today Turkey is returning to the nightmarish inflation that it had sacrificed so much to control. The national currency, the lira, which had stabilized after long yo-yo periods, is once again on a downward slope. For the third year running, Turkey’s trade deficit is expanding at an unprecedented rate while unemployment is also rising at rates unknown since the 1990s.
Read more: Gatestone Institute
