al village
agriculture and crafts. It has a strong and rapidly growing private
sector, yet the state still plays a major role in basic industry,
banking, transport, and communication. Its most important industry -
and largest exporter - is textiles and clothing, which is almost
entirely in private hands. The economic situation in recent years has
been marked by erratic economic growth and serious imbalances. After a
sharp drop in 1994, real GNP averaged 6.5% annual growth in 1995-98;
it then fell about 5% in 1999 as Turkey was adversely affected by
Russia's economic crisis and two major earthquakes. The already-large
public sector fiscal deficit widened in 1999 to perhaps 14% of GDP -
due in large part to the huge burden of interest payments which
accounted for 42% of central grovernment spending. Despite the
implementation in January 1996 of a customs union with the EU, foreign
direct investment in the country remains low - less than $1 billion
annually - perhaps because potential investors are concerned about
economic and political stability. Prospects for the future are
brighter - including prospects for foreign investment - because the
ECEVIT government is implementing a major economic reform program,
including a tighter budget, social security reform, banking
reorganization, and greatly accelerated privatization.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $409.4 billion (1999 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: -5% (1999 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $6,200 (1999 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 18%
industry: 29%
services: 53% (1998)

Population below poverty line: NA%

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 65% (1999 est.)

Labor force: 23.8 million (April 1999)
note: about 1.5 million Turks work abroad (1994)

Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 45.8%, services 33.7%,
industry 20.5% (April 1999)

Unemployment rate: 7.3% plus underemployment of 6.9% (April 1999 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $45.2 billion
expenditures: $66.7 billion, including capital expenditures of $3.4
billion (1999)

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

Industrial production growth rate: -5.2% (1999 est.)

Electricity - production: 116.5 billion kWh (1999)

Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 69.4%
hydro: 30.5%