ISTANBUL
Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said that "while direct international investments in OECD countries were up 18 percent and in Europe 30 percent, such investments in Turkey were up 76 percent".
Speaking at the first session of the Seventh Investment Consultation Council meeting in Istanbul, Erdogan said that the Council meetings since 2004 have made crucial contributions to improving the investment atmosphere in Turkey.
Between 2002 and 2011, Turkey attracted direct international investments worth 110.5 billion USD. In 2007, Turkey attracted direct international investments worth 22 billion USD and this was a record figure. Due to the global economic crisis, international investments throughout the world have been on decline since 2008, Erdogan noted.
Nevertheless, Turkey was successful in attracting international investments worth 18.5 billion USD in 2008, 8.4 billion USD in 2009, 9 billion USD in 2010 and 16 billion USD in 2011.
Direct international investments in Turkey were up 76 percent in 2011, Erdogan stressed.
Among the 34 OECD countries, Turkey ranked 14th as the country attracting most international investments, Erdogan also said.
Turkish pm defines the country's rating as mala fides decision
Erdogan defined on Friday international rating organization's evaluation on the country's outlook as a mala fides decision.
Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it was not possible for Turkey to welcome assessment of some international rating organizations about Turkey, which had achieved a record growth, raised its foreign trade, reduced its unemployment, and that had never made concessions of stability and confidence.
"Economy circles should seriously discuss such nonobjective stance of international rating organizations. It should not be this easy to cause doubts and hesitations about an emerging country that has such a successful performance and to make assessments that can hamper flow of investments," Erdogan said during the Investment Advisory Council meeting in Istanbul.
Erdogan said rating organizations were not visiting Turkey, and were making assessments based on whatever they heard.
"We will build a Turkey, which will be one of the ten giant economies of the world with its 2 trillion USD of national income, in 2023," Erdogan said.
Erdogan said Turkish economy grew 8.5 percent in 2011 and became the second fastest growing economy following China.
Turkey's national income rose to 772 billion USD from 230 billion USD between 2002 and 2011, Erdogan said.
Erdogan said the national income per capita climbed to 10,444 USD from 3,500 USD in the same period.
Turkey's exports were up to 135 billion from 36 billion USD in nine years, the prime minister also said.
Erdogan said Turkey's employment rose by 3.5 million people in the last two years due to global crisis, and Turkey became the country that raised its employment and reduced its unemployment in the world according to figures of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The prime minister said structural reforms had increased Turkey's competitive power, and Turkey would maintain its investment, production, employment and export policies in order to preserve its economic growth performance and cut down current account deficit.
