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 Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة (Re: ثروت سوار الدهب)
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Images of the protests have put off tourists planning to travel to Turkey
Spooked by the unfolding anti-government protests across major cities in Turkey, thousands of foreign businessmen and women invited to attend a medical conference in Istanbul this month cancelled at the last minute.
Eda Ozden, an employee at a travel agency that organises events for Fortune 500 companies, said on top of the recent cancellations for the medical event, clients have called seeking advice on what to do about events booked in two years' time.
Travel agent Eda Ozden is worried about repercussions across the services industry
"That's very bad. The impact is wide - from hotels, bus and taxi companies, restaurants," she told the BBC.
"Tourism so far has only taken a hit in the short run. But... June being the highest season for tourists in Turkey, the industry is afraid. This has happened previously with 9/11, the 2003 Istanbul bombings and the 1999 earthquake. It took until 2005 for our companies to become profitable again."
While the impact of the demonstrations on the economy appears to be limited to a part of the tourism industry for now, even a small bump can be magnified in a country where much of the economy hinges on the services sector.
It makes up 63% of the country's GDP. Turkey is the sixth most popular destination in the world, having attracted 31 million tourists in 2011 and valuing the industry at $30bn.
"It doesn't help that there are photos [in the media] showing the smoke-filled lobby of the InterContinental," said Ms Ozden, adding that the tourism industry was trying to assuage fears by promoting the protests as a healthy symptom of a working democracy.
Continue reading the main story
Turkish economy
Population: 74 million
GDP: $1.1tn
2011 growth rate: 8.5%
Income per capita: $14,517
Total foreign direct investment : $15.9bn
Unemployment rate: 11.7%
Source: World Bank and IMF
Turkish businesses are nervous, uncertain whether the protests are causing just a blip in an otherwise stellar economic performance or putting them on the cusp of a damaging decline.
Jitters were particularly felt in Turkey's stock market, which plunged by more than 10% on Monday - its sharpest drop in 10 years - as investors, many of them foreign, started to pull their money out of the country.
Stocks continued their descent on Thursday after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would go ahead and root up Gezi Park and replace it with a shopping mall - a plan that had originally sparked the unrest.
Turkey's economic growth has skyrocketed since the early 2000s - around the same time Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed power - after implementing austerity measures advised by the International Monetary Fund. The 1990s had been spent in gloomy stagnation.
'Hot money'
White-collar office employees joined the protests after work
While a politically conservative party, the AKP championed a more liberal view of the economy, opening it up to global financial markets and privatising state assets - moves that earned strong supporters in the business community.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Foreign investment has played such a major role that if there is panic or concerns about the Turkish economy, then that would be devastating”
Tolga Esin
Technology entrepreneur
In 2011, while most Western economies were feeling the effects of the financial crisis, Turkey's growth rate was 8.5%, helped by reforms - for example, relaxing barriers for start-ups and companies, and removing travel visas for Russian citizens to boost tourism.
Growth declined sharply last year to 2.5% as the global economy stalled, but the IMF expected the situation to improve "barring new external shocks".
Foreign companies were lured by the perceived political stability under Mr Erdogan's decade-long rule: Microsoft, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and clinical research groups set up regional headquarters in Istanbul.
The US drugs company Pfizer last month announced it was moving its European Union headquarters from Brussels to Istanbul.
It also helped that credit rating agencies upgraded their ratings on Turkey's sovereign debt - Fitch gave it investment grade last November for the first time in 19 years.
But much of the growth in the past decade has masked a fragility - a dependency on external debt, which, at a moment of crisis can leave a country dangerously exposed to market volatility and the whims of investors. Short-term investment from abroad has surged in recent years, while long-term investment has fallen.
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| العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
| تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 00:20 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 00:23 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 00:29 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 01:42 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 01:43 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 02:03 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | HAYDER GASIM | 06-05-13, 03:18 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 06:01 PM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-05-13, 06:07 PM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | HAYDER GASIM | 06-06-13, 02:48 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-06-13, 05:14 AM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-06-13, 07:29 PM |
| Re: تركيا الإنتفاضة | ثروت سوار الدهب | 06-06-13, 08:40 PM |
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ثروت سوار الدهب
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست