Global Ambassador's Journal Vol 3, Issue 2 June 2019

A Brief ‘Turkey’ Overview
H.E. Dr Merve Safa Kavakci,
Ambassador of Turkey
to Malaysia
As the world closes in on to the end
of the second decade of a new millennial
experience, one country with its vibrancy
that caught the eye of students of
international politics has been Turkey.
At the crossroads of two worlds, West
and the rest per se, a historical passage
between the ancient and the modern, the
old and the new, Christianity and Islam
and more so between the secular and
religious, Turkish Republic stands tall as in
many ways, due to its unique positioning.
Since the outset of the century, Turkey’s
efforts to rise from a developing country
stage to a well-on-its way to become the
‘developed’ did not go unnoticed in the
international arena.
In that, both the political and
economic indicators of democratization
served as catapults for one another.
To set the chicken or the egg question
aside, in the Turkish case the reformative
packages introduced in the political
machinery were accompanied by the
fiscal policies of neoliberal agenda
almost contemporaneously in order to
make use of the structural adjustments
needed to gear up towards a more stable,
balanced and equity-based free market
economy. Cognizant of the romanticized
immaculacy of the capitalist system,
Turkey stroke a balance between free
market economy via the power vested
through the ‘invisible hand’ on one hand
and the protectionist policies, on the other
hand, aimed at thwarting the possibility
of growing wedges between the victors
and the losers within the economic
system. On the political end of things,
the disenfranchised strata of the society,
amounting to large pockets of widening
groups in strife for identity recognition and
rights demand, be the religious, the Kurds
or minorities as the Christian and Jewish
denominations, attested to the openings/
expansions towards their social, political
and cultural aspirations in a top-down
model initiated by the state. Again, on the
front of economics, the opening involved
more and rapid privatization to level the
playing field for a formidable financial
base in order to bring in foreign direct
investment. The immediate by-product of
such proactive economic standing was to
zoom in on the chasm between the haves
and have-nots with the hope of tapering
it off so that reification of a conspicuous
middle class could ensue. So it did. As a
result, in the sociopolitical conjecture, the
emerging bourgeoisie reverberated itself
in a vibrant civil society.
On pure fiscal terms, Turkey has
demonstrated strong performance by
increasing its GDP from $ 236 billion in
2002 to $ 784 billion in 2018 while GDP
per capita has tripled. Exports soared
nearly six folds. As we close the decade,
Turkish economy ranks 18th among the
largest economies of the globe and 7th
among European countries. The average
annual growth rate has been 5.7 % up until
last year. Probably one of the significant
results of the economic achievements
played itself out in Turkey’s relationship
with the IMF. When Erdogan’s
government assumed office in late 2002, it
bequeathed a debt of $ 23.5 billion to be
paid to the International Monetary Fund.
By 2013 the entirety of this debt
was paid off transforming the country
from a position of the borrower to
the lender. Along those lines, when
IMF approached Turkey in efforts of
rekindling the relationship between the
two, the government, upon IMF’s asking,
suggested to lend it $ 5 billion. The
Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey’s
(CBRT) official reserves soared up from
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