A giant industrial revolution and huge projects ... these are the details of Turkey's success story

Khalil Mabrouk - Istanbul

Turkey is preparing to lay the foundation stone for the new water channel parallel to the Bosphorus in Istanbul, and hopes to succeed in transiting - through it - a great economic power to the decade in which vision 2023 is achieved.

The channel is one of many giant projects that have come to light in the past decade, and through which Turkey is searching for a place among the group of ten major G10 countries worldwide.

And last Wednesday, the "Turkish Torrent" line was launched to transport Russian gas to Europe via Turkish territory.

Turkey has achieved some of the conditions for accessing the "G10", so its GDP reached $ 2.3 trillion, exceeding the trillion limit that is linked to the national vision, and it possessed a giant transportation network, but many challenges remain in the way of achieving the conditions of development to reach its vision.

Turkey's exports are still below the threshold of five hundred billion dollars annually, and the per capita income has not reached the barrier of 25 thousand dollars, and the number of visitors from tourists has not yet reached fifty million, nor has its nuclear plant been opened despite the signing of a work agreement on it with the Russians.

The transportation revolution
The transportation sector is the most crowded field in the accomplishments of large projects in Turkey. During 2013, it opened the Marmaray train line under the Bosphorus, transporting 1.5 million passengers daily, before building the Yaoz Selim Bridge suspension in 2016, which crosses 135 thousand cars. Daily.

In the same year, the "Eurasia" tunnel was opened to a length of 14.6 km, to reduce the travel time between the Asian and European parts of Istanbul during peak hours from one hundred to 15 minutes.

Istanbul Airport, which opened in late 2018, represents one of the new sources of massive income in Turkey, since it started work in full capacity in April of 2019 used by 52.5 million passengers, and they are half of the number of users of Turkey's airports in 2019, which is about 104.2 million passengers.

The Industrial Revolution
Without oil, natural gas, or even precious metals, Turkey achieved a record last year in the value of its exports, which exceeded $ 180 billion, and plans to raise it to $ 190 billion by the end of 2020.

Industrial production is the most important source of hard currency, as Turkey has already started production of its national car with 100% local technology early this year, while the revenues of manufacturing and exporting cars and cutting them during 2019 amounted to nearly 32 billion dollars.

The garment industry is a remarkable economic force in Turkey, where the value of its exports last year exceeded 17 billion dollars.

As for the arms market , Turkey has made tremendous strides, which it transferred from the importer box to the Self-Manufacturing Department to the exporting country, after its exports reached $ 18.3 billion between 2002 and 2018, while total sales in the same period reached $ 64.9 billion.

In the fields of technology, the number of "Technoparks" centers that include Turkish technology companies increased from two centers in 2001 to 84 centers in 2019 distributed over 56 Turkish cities.

Turkey is currently working on implementing "production automation" programs that will enable it to increase the value of manufacturing exports to $ 210 billion in 2023, and is also seeking to increase the share of research and development expenditures to 1.8% of the state budget.

As for the pharmaceutical industries, its exports amounted to 1.17 billion dollars in 2018, while the total value of medical tourism in Turkey is about five hundred billion dollars, as the medical sector is looking to provide twenty billion dollars in revenues from this tourism by 2023.

Energy market
Last Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian Vladimir Putin in Istanbul launched the "Turkish Torrent" line, to transport Russian gas to Europe via Turkish territory.

The project - which provides Turkey with half of its natural gas needs - will transform the country from a gas importer to a commercial center.

Today, Turkey generates about 46% of its energy needs from renewable energy projects to invest the sun and wind energy, and looks forward to raising it to 56% by 2023. It also established ambitious projects in the states of Edirne and Fethiye to produce energy from waste recycling, as well as the Aq Qyu nuclear plant that has been completed. Laying the foundation stone for it in Mersin in 2018.

Wide fields
The last decade witnessed a giant revolution in the consumer industries, especially with regard to food products and tools, and in the fields of marine industries and export of minerals and steel, furniture and furnishings, among others.

As for the famous Turkish tourism market, the growth reached an extent that was reflected by the giant operating capacity of airports, transport and communications, as the number of tourists in 2018 alone reached more than 43 million tourists, and in 2019 it reached 51 million, with aspirations to reach the number of 58 million this year.

The volume of tourism and foreign visits was reflected in the output of major investment sectors in the country, such as hotel and real estate trade, which sold 1 million 375 million to 398 apartments in 2018 alone.

During the last decade, Turkish universities have grown significantly, as their number has increased from 76 universities in 2002 to 202 universities currently, to which another 15 universities are being added.

University education budget also increased in the same period from 11 billion pounds (1.87 billion dollars) to 134 billion pounds (22.8 billion dollars), in addition to 150 billion pounds from the contributions of Turkish ministries and Turkish donors.

Economic development
Economic readings show that Turkey will see more economic recovery in 2020, as it succeeded in reducing the inflation rate from about 20% at the beginning of 2019 to 12% at the end of the year.

Turkey's GDP also increased by 2.8% in 2018, compared to the same period in the previous year, while per capita share reached 45 thousand and 750 TL in 2018.

In 2019, HSBC Holdings ranked Turkey seventh in the world, as the best country to live and work, while its army maintained its position in the forefront of the region's armies and the tenth strongest in the world.