Turkey in Information Age

Turkey’s economy had been experiencing an 8% on average growth during 1995, 1996 and 1997. However, the impact of the Asian and the Russian financial crisis resulted in a slowdown of the economy during 1998. GDP grew up only 3.8 %. In 1999 Turkey suffered from political instability with two major earthquakes, so the GDP was down 6.4 % to $187 Billion. In 2000, economy started to grow again and grew up 6% to $198.6 Billion. In 2001 Turkey has been suffering from a major financial crises, while it has been implementing the IMF supported inflation combat program. So the economy is expected to be down by 8 % in 2001.

            Turkey’s IT industry has grown by 83%to $3.3 Billion in 2000 from $1,800 in 1999. The growth in 1999 was by 47 % to $1,800 from $1,225 in 1998. IT industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in Turkey. Its share in GDP was 0.6 % in 1998. It grew up to 0.9 % in 1999 and %1.6 in 2000. However the IT sector is estimated to be a $2.9 Billion in 2001 because of the financial crisis, which hit Turkey early 2001.

            Despite of the economic instability, Turkey is at the eve of the Information age. Turkey’s government started a privatization program that, the liberalization of fixed line voice telephony in 2004 will be a final step of having a competitive and reliable telecom industry. Turkey boasted more than 1.7 million Internet users in 2000, a figure that is estimated to increase to 3 million by the end of 2001. Furthermore, industry groups predict that a good percentage of small and medium-sized enterprises in Turkey will continue to make significant investments in information technology. Turkey’s comparative advantage is in a dynamic workforce whose business leaders seek to ensure that Turkey remains a regional leader in technological change. This core group rides on the wave of a tech-savvy generation. The readily available, highly trained, and low-cost labor force in Turkey proved willing and able to produce high quality portals where goods could be bought and sold. Only the recent economic crisis and the availability of the necessary infrastructure limit the consecutive rapid growth of the information technology sector.

            Turkey Connected is a report where the Information Technology Landscape of Turkey was scanned. In this report you will be able to find data concerning the industry details and the analysis like national IT strengths and weaknesses and impacts on the IT/non-IT businesses.