government revenue in 1996 went to
pay interest on the national debt. The government that took office in
July 1996 - an unusual coalition of Prime Minister ERBAKAN's Islamic
Welfare Party and Deputy Prime Minister CILLER's conservative True
Path Party - is trying to solve the fiscal problem by greatly
accelerating Turkey's privatization program. It has proposed a
balanced budget for 1997, although this is widely regarded as over
optimistic because it is based on earning more privatization revenue
in one year than Turkey has earned over the last decade. Ankara is
trying to increase trade with other countries in the region but most
of Turkey's trade is still with OECD countries. Despite the
implementation in January 1996 of a customs union with the EU, foreign
direct investment in the country totaled only about half a billion
dollars, perhaps because potential investors were concerned about the
prospects for economic stability.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $379.1 billion (1996 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: 7% (1996 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $6,100 (1996 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture : 15%
industry: 33%
services: 52% (1995)

Inflation rate - consumer price index: 80% (1996)

Labor force:
total: 21.3 million
by occupation: agriculture 47%, services 33%, industry 20% (1995)
note: about 1.5 million Turks work abroad (1994)

Unemployment rate: 6.3% (April 1996); another 6.3% officially
considered underemployed

Budget:
revenues: $32.9 billion
expenditures: $50.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $2.8
billion (1996)

Industries: textiles, food processing, mining (coal, chromite, copper,
boron), steel, petroleum, construction, lumber, paper

Industrial production growth rate: 6.5% (1996)

Electricity - capacity: 20.86 million kW (1994)

Electricity - production: 86.3 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity - consumption per capita: 1,206 kWh (1995 est.)

Agriculture - products: tobacco, cotton, grain, olives, sugar beets,
pulses, citrus; livestock

Exports:
total value : $22 billion (f.o.b., 1996 est.)
commodities: textiles and apparel 40%, steel products 9%, foodstuffs
20% (1995)
partners: Germany 23%, Russia 6%, US 7%, Italy 7% (1995)

Imports:
total value: $42 billion (f.o.b., 1996 est.)
commodities : machinery 23%, fuels 13%, raw materials 11%, foodstuffs
7% (1995)
partners: Germany 16%, US 10%, Italy 9%, France 6%, UK 5% (1995)

Debt - external: