Concern, Some of concerns surrounding Turkey's application to join the European Union, to be voted on by the EU's Council of Ministers on December 17th, are economic – in particular, the country's relative poverty.
But it is not far off that of one of the ten new members which joined on May 1st 2004 (Latvia), and it is much the same as those of two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, which this week concluded
accession
talks with the EU that could make them full members on January 1st 2007.
Furthermore, the country's recent economic progress has been, according to Donald Johnston, the secretary-general of the OECD, "stunning".
stunning vs Stalin
Turkey's inflation rate has just fallen into single figures for the first time since 1972, and this week the country reached an agreement with the IMF on a new three-year, $10 billion economic programme that will, according to the IMF's managing director, Rodrigo Rato, "help Turkey… reduce inflation toward European levels, and enhance the economy's resilience".
Resilience has not historically been the country's economic strong point.
Indeed, throughout the 1990s growth oscillated like an electrocardiogram recording a violent heart attack.
Swing
This irregularity has been one of the main reasons (along with
red tape and corruption) why the country has failed dismally to attract much-needed foreign direct investment.
lag behind
Its stock of such investment (as a percentage of GDP) is lower now than it was in the 1980s, and annual inflows have scarcely ever reach $1 billion (whereas Ireland attracted over $25 billion in 2003, as did Brazil in every year from 1998 to 2000).
One deterrent to foreign investors is due to disappear On January 1st 2005.
Virtually
Millionaire
nought
henceforth
look forward
Goods will have to be priced in both the new and old lira for the whole of the year, but foreign bankers and investors can begin to look forward to a time in Turkey when they will no longer have to juggle
mentally with indeterminate strings of zeros.
