President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent South Korea trip showed that Asia's tigers, China, South Korea and Japan, are determined to take important roles in Turkish megaprojects. While the global political economy is being restructured, Turkey is moving from the Western-based economic-commercial-military perspective of the last 15 years to a new, multifaceted perspective enriched at the intercontinental level.
Asian tigers, well aware of Turkey's key role in Eurasia, have intensified their desire to carry out joint investment projects with Turkey. Significant cooperation projects in energy, automotive, medical and health technologies, defense technologies, construction technologies, transportation technologies, smart urban technologies and agriculture technologies will be on the agenda one after another.
We were in Shanghai to open the Shanghai Office of the International Cooperation Platform (ICP), which has been organizing the Bosporus Summit for nine years under the auspices of the presidency and to accelerate the investment cooperation process between the Turkish private sector and the Chinese private sector. While Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak held important meetings in Beijing on investment projects between China and Turkey, especially in nuclear energy, and opportunities for cooperation with the International Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in financing were being evaluated, ICP Chairman Cengiz Özgencil and a Turkish business delegation met to discuss opportunities for cooperation with China's largest investor group, the Poly Group, in the areas of medical diagnostic technologies, mining technologies, electrical buses, wellness and care technologies. In addition, in the organic farming region of Qian Xiao Jun, opportunities for cooperation and joint investment were assessed on greenhouses and organic agriculture.
Starting from June, numerous delegations from China will visit Turkey and make use of a series of investment agreements with Turkish companies active in areas I've listed above. The Caohejing New Technology Development Zone is a sophisticated technology specialization zone of 275 square kilometers. We explained the opportunities for cooperation in organized industrial zones (OIZ) by transferring culture and capabilities. In addition to organic agriculture facilities on Changxing Island, in the Changxing Hengshan Fishing Port, we assessed Turkey's cold and hot fishing culture and investment opportunities with Chinese counterparts. Chinese authorities have repeatedly expressed their admiration for President Erdoğan's leadership and for his vision of cooperation with Asian tigers. While the operating mechanisms of the asymmetrical order and its extensions in Turkey believe that it can slow Turkey with "exchange rate" and "rating" operations, Turkey's Asian expansion will come back as new investment opportunities worth billions of dollars and as new employment opportunities for Turkish companies.
June 24 will reinforce
the ‘real' market economy
When it comes to listing the achievements of the 15-year Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government in the economy, successful public fiscal discipline, internationally accomplished banking sector, high growth performance, export record, a dynamic private sector that sells goods to 209 destinations in worldwide and has successfully completed megaprojects can of course be counted in a flash. However, for us economists, there are two critical successes that may not have been felt enough and adequately expressed on the basis of households and the business world; namely, an effective market economy bottom and top structure and effective struggle with the informal economy. For Turkey to ensure a transition to a private sector-dominated real market economy system in which the public can organize its supervisory and regulatory role effectively, the first seeds were planted by the late Menderes. Later, Özal almost devoted himself for Turkey to adopt a real market economy model in the period between 1983 and 1993.
The 2001 crisis, as the most severe economic crisis Turkey had seen in the history of the Republic, almost confirmed that Turkey would not save itself from an economic crisis every 5 to 10 years unless a real market economy commenced, and Turkey featured an internationally acclaimed performance in the last 15 years at the point of adopting a real market economy with a central bank that gained its instrumental independence, floating exchange rate regime, a private sector-driven production-growth model, effectively functioning financial markets, conventional and digital payment systems, and enhanced supply and distribution chains. This process progressed with President Erdoğan's leadership and vision, making Turkey the center of attraction in terms of foreign direct investment.
The AK Party will never compromise on this success, which brought Turkey a real market economy. On the contrary, with the presidential government system and President Erdoğan's commitment and vision, we will welcome new economic management that will carry the Turkish economy to a more ambitious market economy model and a professionalism that will rapidly realize second generation reforms. June 24 is a historic threshold that will transform Turkey's 15-year success in the market economy and our economy into a global center of attraction. Let's vote for the real market economy.