During this period, our natural stone exports outpaced total exports.
Natural stone exports swelled up by 102% from $29.3 million to $59 million
in 1994.
As processed marble and travertine more than doubled from $20 million
to $48 million, its share in total natural stone exports was repositioned
from 68% to 80%.
The overvaluation of the TL by reason of the "hot money policy"
impaired exports, but rendered imports more attractive.
The most important reason as to why our total natural stone exports
kept growing may be the reduction in export prices in spite of the overvalued TL.
Plummeting prices made exports more lucrative.
Besides, the development in production technologies and the opening of new
production areas made an impact on total supply, pushed prices down,
while at the same time the newly embedded export consciousness in our country
and the channeling of the supply surplus to exports were major factors
that played on the favorable performance of natural stone exports.
In this period, the basic export price, value divided by quantity,
dropped in 1989 from 33 $/ton to 26 $/ton.
In the same period, processed marble and travertine export prices
descended from 62 $/ton to 42 $/ton. Our prices for block marble and
travertine exports moved down from 17 $/ton to 13 $/ton.
Since the "Hot Money Policy" until 1994 became untenable,
a new Economic Stability Package, known by the public as the April 5
Decisions, was introduced. In the April 5 devaluation, TL lost value
in real terms and this loss continued for a year.
In the period of time, running from the contraction due to the 1994
crisis until 1998, the economy went through a stage of recovery.
Throughout this time, the GDP growth rate was 4.7% on average.
Despite another contraction in 1999, the GDP growth for 2000 was 7.2%.
Hence, exports regained momentum. Between 1994 and 1998 annual export
rise was 47% and import rise was 97%.
In 1998, exports reached $26.9 billion and imports, $45.9 billion
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