During the five-year planned period that have been applied since the year of 1963 in Turkey, the high growth rates and structural changes towards industrialisation have been considered as the fundamental targets. The industrialisation strategies that have been adopted and the economical policies that have been followed indicate a significant difference between the periods before and after the year of 1980. The Economical Stability Program dated 24th January 1980 and the policies that have been followed in the further periods reflect a more radical modification in the policy of economy and industrialisation much different from the stability programs that were executed in every 8-10 years before. As a matter of fact, some radical changes were started to be initiated in the policies of money, finance, and foreign trade and foreign exchange rates. Instead of an industrialisation oriented towards domestic market-based on the substitution of importation, a transformation has been realised towards the industrialisation oriented towards foreign markets-based on exportation. In the period after the year of 1980, the encouragement of the industry sector has been concentrated in the stage of production and the foreign capital initiatives have been increased. This structural change that has been experienced in the industry sector has been tried to be performed through the increase of the production of by-products and investment goods within the production of the manufacture industry. The production of highway vehicles, simple tools without motor drive and the metallic materials take the first place among the investment goods. On the other hand, petroleum and iron-steel products have the greatest share in the production the by-products. Furthermore, the importation of by-products and the investment goods has been facilitated on a significant basis. Therefore, the utilisation of the new technologies and the modern marketing techniques required by the industry has become widespread within the country.
Since particularly the second half of the years of 1980s, the governments have actuated the model of Build-Operate-Transfer in order to accelerate the investments for infrastructure and to cover the requirement for resources under better conditions. In respect of the capital market, the requisite preconditions have been arranged in order to provide primarily the orientation of the small-scale savings towards industry and the Capital Market Board was founded with a law that was issued in the year of 1981. In parallel to these precautions, the banking services have been modernised and the requisite legal arrangements have been prepared for the acceleration of the international transactions. Special attention has been attached to the fields of communication and transportation services that are the inevitable preconditions of the industrialisation policy.
The precautions that encouraged the activities towards gaining foreign exchange have mostly been initiated since the year of 1980 together with the arrangements oriented towards exportation. These precautions have provided great contributions towards the attainment of a competitive power in the industry and the increase in the exportation. The free zones and the international fairs opened in Turkey have been much effective in the development of Turkish industry and its integration with the world markets. As a result of all these efforts that have been endeavoured towards the development of the industry sector, the ratio of the industrial goods in the total export of Turkey has increased from the rate of 36% to the rate of 77.4 % between the years of 1980-1998.
The main sources of the growth in the industry sector have been the investments and the dynamism of the private sector. In parallel to the studies and works towards the improvement of the industrial sector carried out in the recent years, the studies for the privatisation of the industrial activities that were realised by the public sector have been accelerated. The investments of the public sector in the industrial production have been decreased. Furthermore, the state has started to support the Research and Development (R&D) activities carried out by the Turkish private sector in a systematic manner since the years of 1990s. Moreover, the legislation about the support and encouragement of the R&D activities by the state allowances has been put into force in the year of 1995.
The ongoing activities carried out towards the integration with the world markets are continued and maintained with its rapid pace. Through the experiences and savings that it has obtained, the Turkish industry has reached to a proper level sufficient enough to undertake and orientate the joint investments that have been carried out in all world countries with particularly the Middle East, Islam countries and the Central Asian Republics that attained their independence in the period after 1990.
There has been great increase in the business visits to Turkey in the recent years. To the effect of the support of the joint investment projects, various activities are carried out by Turkish Union of Chambers and Stock Markets (TOBB) that is one of the most important business corporations of the merchants and industrialists in Turkey, the Confederation of Tradesmen and Craftsmen of Turkey (TESK) that is the highest business corporation of the tradesmen and craftsmen, the societies of industrialists and businessmen, the private companies and the foundations, etc.
Considering the sectoral distribution of the Gross National Product (GNP), it has been observed that the share of the industry sector that was 21.9% in the year of 1997 has decreased to 19.6% in the year of 1998. The industry sector has started with a high growth rate of 9.1% in accordance with the general trend; however, it has been able to realise growth with the ratio of 1.8%. The decrease in the production of manufacture industry has been effective in the decrease that has been observed in the ratio of the industry added values in GNP. The production of manufacture industry has a share of 8.5% in the total industrial production and this share has increased from the rate of 7.7 in the year of 1996 to the rate of 12.3% in the year of 1997. The growth has maintained the same trend in the first half of the year of 1998. However, since the second half of the same year, a production narrowing has been experienced due to deficiency in the domestic demands. The capacity utilisation rate of manufacture industry that was 79.4% in the year of 1997 has decreased to 76.6% by the end of the year of 1998. However, the exportation of the industrial products that constituted 77.4% of the total exports has increased with a growth rate of 5.6% in the year of 1998 compared to the previous year and it has reached to the figure of 20 billions 886 million dollars.