• Analysis and Studies
• Turkey: a look at the market

Turkey is largely located in Asia but a small area is part of Europe (accounting for 3 percent of the country's total territory). It has thousands of kilometers of coastline spread between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. It lies at the crossroads of the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and the eastern Mediterranean. The main cities are Istanbul, with more than 15 million inhabitants, followed by the capital, Ankara (5,036,000 inhab. ), located in the central area of ​​Anatolia, and Smyrna (or Izmir, 2,957,000 inhab.), on the Aegean Sea. Turks make up 76 percent of the population, with the most significant minority being the Kurds (16 percent), found mainly in the eastern part. The country is a NATO member and since 2005 has been involved in the process of becoming a member of the European Union, a process that has not been completed yet.  

Turkey’s the 17^th economy by GDP size, with a value of 815 billion dollars in 2021. According to the Social Progress Index 2021 (published every year by the Social Progress Imperative, a no-profit organization that ranks countries according to social aspects such as access to basic human needs, general well-being, and opportunities), it’s the 87^th country in the world for living standards. Turkey has maintained a long-term focus on making ambitious changes in several areas since 2000, and government initiatives have targeted vulnerable individuals and disadvantaged regions.

Its modern free-market economy is driven by industry and, increasingly, service industries. However, the traditional agriculture sector still employs around 25% of the workforce. Within Turkey's export mix, the automobile, petrochemical, and electronics industries have grown in prominence and exceeded the traditional textiles and apparel sectors.

Turkey's top exports in 2020 were cars ($10.1 billion), vehicle parts ($4.59 billion), delivery trucks ($4.34 billion), gold ($3.97 billion), refined petroleum ($3.51 billion), and tires ($3.51 billion), mostly to Germany ($16.3 billion), the United Kingdom ($12.7 billion), the United States ($10.3 billion), Iraq ($9.14 billion), and Italy ($8.23 billion). The main imports were gold ($23.7 billion), cars ($8.17 billion), refined petroleum ($6.13 billion), scrap iron ($6.01 billion), mostly imported from Germany ($24 billion), China ($22.1 billion), Russia ($13.1 billion), the United States ($10.7 billion), and Italy ($8.94 billion).

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