BY TAHA AKYOL
MILLIYET- During his speech at a press conference in Moscow, Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges head Rifat Hisarciklioglu stressed the importance of the ‘entrepreneur middle class’ in improving nations’ economies. ‘The Soviet Republic collapsed because there was no entrepreneur middle class to act as the engine of the economy,’ he said. ‘Since Turkey has reached the capacity to create such a class, its exports, which was two billion dollars in early 1980s, has today reached to 63 billion dollars. He gave the following figures: ‘The number of our industrialists was about a thousand, and nearly all of our exports were agricultural products. Today, 85% of our 65-billion dollars exports is industrial products. We have 25 thousand industrialist companies and 40 thousand exporters.’ Therefore, today Turkey is more developed, free and powerful than the past!
Transition to a middle class society is also changing our political culture. ‘Let the state do it,’ we said for ages, but today ‘Don’t let the state intervene,’ we insist. The strengthening of the middle class is also improving its ethics and artistic taste. We know that transparency is the most effective measure against corruption. More developed Turkey means more decent Turkey.
Turkey must trade in 8 billion dollars more services and products to the Russian Federation in order to reach a balance of foreign trade. According to State Minister Kursad Tuzmen, our target is 150 billion dollars. Our entrepreneur middle class will grow bigger, and will pave the way for more employment and production, and then sell these products to the world market.
‘We want nothing from the state,’ Hisarciklioglu said. ‘The state should only make the structural reforms. It should take effective measures to crack down on unregistered economy. Briefly speaking, we want the state to establish a political and economic structure similar to that of the developed countries. We will then be able to compete with the giants of the world, and our country then will become one of them!’
Turkey’s future depends on the self-confidence of the middle class. Turkey is on the right track.