The Republic of Turkey is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in South Eastern Europe. Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy since the foundation of republic in 1923. Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state. Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in Organizations such as the EU, NATO, OECD and the G-20 major economies. Turkey has also fostered close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Middle East, the Turkic states of Central Asia and the African countries through membership in Organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organization and also D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation.

Turkey has the world's 15th largest GDP-PPP and 17th largest nominal GDP. The country is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies. The Turkish economy has shown remarkable performance with its steady growth over the last eight years. A sound macroeconomic strategy in combination with prudent fiscal policies and major structural reforms in effect since 2002 has integrated the Turkish economy into the globalized world, while transforming the country into one of the major recipients of FDI in its region. The structural reforms, hastened by Turkey’s EU accession process, have paved the way for comprehensive changes in a number of areas. The main objectives of these efforts were to increase the role of the private sector in the Turkish economy, to enhance the efficiency and resiliency of the financial sector, and to place the social security system on a more solid foundation. As these reforms have strengthened the macroeconomic fundamentals of the country, the economy grew with an average annual real GDP growth rate of 5.2 percent over the past nine years between 2002 and 2011.

Together with stable economic growth, Turkey has also reined in its public finances; the EU-defined general government nominal debt stock fell to 39.4 percent from 74 percent in a period of nine years between 2002 and 2011. Hence, Turkey has been meeting the “60 percent EU Maastricht criteria” for public debt stock since 2004. Similarly, during 2002-2011, the budget deficit decreased from more than 10 percent to less than 3 percent, which is one of the EU Maastricht criteria for the budget balance. As the GDP levels more than tripled to USD 772 billion in 2011, up from USD 231 billion in 2002, GDP per capita soared to USD 10,444, up from USD 3,500 in the given period. The visible improvements in the Turkish economy have also boosted foreign trade, while exports reached USD 135 billion by the end of 2011, up from USD 36 billion in 2002. Similarly, tourism revenues, which were around USD 8.5 billion in 2002, exceeded USD 23 billion in 2011. Significant improvements in such a short period of time have registered Turkey on the world economic scale as an exceptional emerging economy, the 16th largest economy in the world and the 5th largest economy when compared with the EU countries, according to GDP figures (at PPP) in 2011. While many economies have been unable to recover from the recent global financial recession, the Turkish economy expanded by 9.2 percent in 2010, and 8.5 percent in 2011, thus standing out as the fastest growing economy in Europe, and one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Source: Invesment Support and Promotion Agency, Turkey.