Turkey's economy is mostly based on a free market system. With a developing tourism market there is also a rapid increase in development of the service industry. Another big part of the Turkish economy is agriculture, providing 25% of the population with job opportunities.
Turkey has a GDP (purchasing power parity) of $2.186 trillion which makes Turkey 16th in the world (data from 2017). GDP per capita (PPP) on the other hand is $27,000, which puts Turkey in 77th place in the world (data from 2017).
Turkey's main agricultural products are tobacco, cotton, grains, olives, sugar beets, hazelnuts, pulses, and citrus.
The main areas of industry include the textile, food processing, automobile, electronic, mining, steel, petroleum, construction, lumber, and paper industries.
Turkey's domestic labor force is about 31.3 million people, putting Turkey in the 19th place in the world (2017). This labor force is distributed to different fields as followed: 18.4% in agriculture, 26.6% in industry, 54.4% in services (2016).
Turkey’s main export products are foodstuff, apparel, textiles, metal manufactures and transport equipment. Traditionally known for its textile and clothing products, Turkey focused on automotive and petrochemical industries more in the recent years and exported more of the products in these fields.
Turkey’s major export partners are as following: Germany 9.6%, UK 6.1%, UAE 5.9%, Iraq 5.8%, US 5.5%, Italy 5.4%, France 4.2%, Spain 4% (as of 2017).
On the other hand, Turkey's major import partners are: China 10%, Germany 9.1%, Russia 8.4%, US 5.1%, Italy 4.8% (2017).
Turkey’s currency is the Turkish lira, and 1 USD is around 5.5-6 Turkish liras in 2019. Turkish liras come in 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 lira paper bills.
Özge Erdem
Özge’s career goals changed big time during the third year of her major, when she realized she had no wish to be a chemical engineer. After traveling Asia and doing various nomadic jobs, she settled back in Turkey to start her dream job of building websites and copy-writing with her high school friend.
