| In the years 1983-1988, the theme of spreading export awareness and creating a permanent exporting group
was played up. Again in this period, relevant legal and institutional arrangements
were made so that institutions could help merge domestic and foreign balance to
manage the economy single-handedly with less bureaucracy and so that more
qualified and rapid support would be offered to exporters and investors.
For this purpose, The Treasury and Foreign Trade Undersecretariat, Eximbank, etc.
were established to induce more consciousness in producers and exporters and
support them.
The performance of our natural stone exports continued to be in step with
the overall export growth in these years: first becoming $9.7 million in 1985,
the natural stone exports of 1988 was $14.4 million.
During these years, the share of marble and travertine exports retreated
from 75% to 50%. Here, the nearly 100% climb of block marble and travertine
exports attract attention. The reason for this may be that in this period
both crude marble and travertine export prices fell from 8.2 $/ton to 6.3 $/ton.
Granite exports in this period made up only 1% of total natural stone exports.
In the 1990s, the exchange rate was put under pressure to encourage capital
flow into the country and real interests were kept high which led to the Turkish
lira (TL) to be valued in real terms until April 1994. As a result of this "hot
money policy" of the years 1990-1993, the TL gained excess real value, the speed
of exports was curbed and a momentum was observed in imports. In this period,
as exports moved up by 20%, imports increased by 32%. The rise in foreign trade
volume was by 27% up from $35 billion to $45 billion.
Please click here to return back to articles main page
|
