When Turkey's Prime Minister, Turgut Ozal (left) comes to Britain to see Margaret Thatcher this month, it should be a meeting of minds. Privatization, competition - these are the means by which they both hope to bring prosperity to their countries. Both have an intractable unemployment problem. But Ozal has to overcome a much worse heritage. Besides the backwardness of rural Turkey, the lack of roads and the paucity of raw materials, there is the financial mess made by the governments of the 1970s, when the country hurtled headlong into to debt. Though Turkey is once more able to borrow on world markets, it has to do so on a more modest scale than its projects require. Can it mobilize its domestic resources? By David Barchard
What will Turkey look like a quarter of a century from now? The pessimists argue that it will still be a medium-level developing country, albeit one with a substantial manufacturing industry, handicapped by an ever-growing population which by then may be approaching 80 million (it is now about 51 million).
Not so, say the followers of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, Turkey is restructuring its industry and economic institutions to ensure that it becomes something like a middle eastern Japan - geared towards export activity, a merchant state whose industries can compete effectively in the Middle East, the European Economic Community (which some Turkish businessmen believe Turkey will have joined by then) and beyond.