Addendum to Hurriyet column: Arab spring, Turkish fall
I have a few points to add to today’s Hurriyet Daily News column, which was also posted at the blog earlier today:
First, I should tell that I first learned of the Grant Thornton survey through the Financial Times, which ran a story about companies feeling the heat of the Arab revolution- it has some nice cases about the difficulties foreign companies are facing in the region and is so highly recommended, if you have membership of course…
After contacting the London and Turkish offices of Grant Thornton, I ended up with an English press bulletin, a Turkish one and an Excel sheet with the results of the survey. Again, I would not make much about of such a survey by itself, but when you combine the results with the facts I present in the column, such as Turkish exports to Syria surging (BTW, I did not have enough space to mention it, but the Syria-Jordan border was closed and only recently reopened, so no wonder trade between the two countries collapsed) and Southeastern Turkey official employment increasing during the crisis, you feel there is something going on here. GT’s Turkish press bulletin argues that the Turkish companies benefiting from the turmoil could be in the tourism sector, but I doubt that 11 percent of the sample would be comprised of the tourism sector; that would be really bad sampling…
I also would like to expand on the last sentence a bit: I have learned that the Undersecretariat of Trade is actually doing something: For one thing, I know that they have done a complete inventory of Turkish businesses operating in Egypt, although I am not sure if they have done the same for Syria. But what I am calling for, in that last sentence, is for active government involvement for boosting Turkey’s exports to the region. But again, I just heard about a couple of things they are doing; that is really the topic of a separate column, whereby I would need to talk to policymakers first…
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