Nissin foods comes to Turkey
Güven Sak, PhD
04 August 2012
Nissin Food’s entry into the Turkish market is a good sign for the female labor force participation rate. Turkey’s biggest growth challenge is increasing women’s participation in the labor force. The total number of working women in Turkey is around 7 million, while we have a whopping 12 million housewives.
[More]
Turkey is like an adolescent
Güven Sak, PhD
03 August 2012
In order to be transformative, you first have to be aware that you are different. Recently in Tunisia, a businessman said, “It gives me goose bumps when your ministers come on official visits with hundreds of business people.” He thought that it was quite disturbing that people in the same industry as his came to his country to sign deals. He was depressed to see the army of rivals marching around. Let me remind you that until recently Tunisia was a closed country, like Turkey in the 1980s. But they don’t know about the paths we have followed since then. Turkey has to develop a transformative foreign economic relations strategy for the region. This was not necessary in the 1980s, but it is today. Now it is about time for our ministers to review their strategy of taking planes full of busin
[More]
Will Turkey entrust cities to its villagers?
Güven Sak, PhD
31 July 2012
Yesterday, the core problem was the central government’s tutelage over the local. I’m afraid tomorrow’s problem will be tutelage of the rural over the urban. The agenda of debate in Turkey is not actually Turkey’s agenda. Abortion, caesarean section, and most recently the debate on beer drinking at universities are defective agenda items. They are defective because they don’t relate to Turkey’s future or enrichment. From this perspective, Turkey’s current agenda is sort of a distraction. You know, in the times of the street fairs in the past, some thieves used to distract people by pointing at the acrobats to steal their purses. Turkey’s current agenda is just like that. I believe that the Turkey that fails to govern its cities and change their organization and operation structure cannot b
[More]
Saving is the worst thing to do nowadays
Güven Sak, PhD
24 July 2012
I believe that the biggest loser of the current era will be the savers. The crisis of 2008 continues to shake our faith in the system. Recently, another supporting column of the system collapsed. It has been revealed that the calculation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) was being manipulated. You must be kidding! Daily transactions worth trillion dollars are priced on the basis of LIBOR, as a reference interest rate. British Barclays’ former chief operating officer, forced to leave office by the Bank of England (BoE), stated that the bank had declared borrowing rates lower than the LIBOR back then and that the BoE had been aware and even supportive of their actions. Then all Hell broke loose. This Barclays incident is really bad for us all. It has tempted us to question the sys
[More]
Turkey’s desperate housewives
Güven Sak, PhD
21 July 2012
When compared with EU countries, the FLFP in Turkey is lower at every level of education. The size of the labor force is roughly the same in Turkey and South Korea: 25 million. Yet the populations differ enormously, with Turkey’s 73 million to 50 million in South Korea. We have a larger population but a smaller labor force. Why? The female labor force participation (FLFP) rate is around 50 percent in Korea while it is below 30 percent in Turkey. But the FLFP in Turkey is not only lower when compared to South Korea, it is also lower in comparison to many Muslim-majority countries as well, not to speak of Europe. For some reason women in Turkey, unlike their sisters in comparable environments, stay at home.
[More]
But fewer people own cars
Güven Sak, PhD
20 July 2012
The municipality approach in Turkey is based on building roads and then throwing us all into the street and saying “every man for himself.” I generally read the comments to my columns. Though I don’t like most of them, I read them all. Feedback is good. One comment to my column on Tuesday made me reconsider my argument. Today I would like to share a couple of figures with this perspective.
[More]
Toilets at each end of the bridge: kill me now!
Güven Sak, PhD
17 July 2012
As one of the main arteries is closed, they have no option but put portable toilets at each end of the bridge, right? Last week I wrote how the Turkish Housing Development Administration (TOKİ), which dates from the 1930s, has been affecting our lives. I argued that the modus operandi and the organization of TOKİ have caused an uncontrolled concentration of power, and I emphasized the potential loss of resources to which this might lead. I believe that the TOKİ approach harms both growth prospects and the urban structure. I complained about the automobile-dominated urban structure. Then I saw the new measures the Istanbul Municipality and Governorate initiated upon the maintenance work on the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge that will reduce traffic to a single lane. To what point does the domin
[More]
Egypt is no Sudan
Güven Sak, PhD
14 July 2012
Like Sudan, Egypt’s economic situation looks gloomy. Unlike Sudan there is hope on the ground in Egypt, which is rather good for expectations management. Egypt and Sudan are neighbors. The Arab Spring has toppled Egypt’s political status quo of three decades. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, representing that country’s status quo, has said there would be no similar movement against him. Yet the unrest is already there. The challenge here is to reform your economy without rocking the boat too much. If you fiddle with an extensive subsidy system, as al-Bashir has done, you get caught up in demonstrations. Egypt has an extensive system of subsidies, too. Can President Mohamed Morsi get rid of them? He has to. It is time for price reforms in Egypt. But Egypt is no Sudan. Let me t
[More]
If it was TOKİ, Barcelona would not be as it is today
Güven Sak, PhD
13 July 2012
If it was TOKİ, Barcelona would probably have turned into a compilation of distant and strictly separated satellite towns. I am sincerely sorry that I cannot cite Istanbul as a case to explain my point today. At the end of the commentary, you will agree that I am right. Today, I have decided to use Barcelona as my example, also because I visited the city last weekend.
[More]
The TOKİ model dates from the 1930s
Güven Sak, PhD
10 July 2012
Why can't the TOKİ model deliver any good even with good intentions? Sudden floods claimed lives in Russia and Turkey last week. Twelve people were killed in Turkey’s Samsun and 170 people in Russia’s Krymsk. Krymsk made it into the news as it lies close to Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. The flood in Samsun put the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) back on top of the agenda. I believe that TOKİ is the best example of the recent ghost of statism of the 1930s in Turkey. If the judge, the prosecutor, and the police are the same, can the system produce justice? No, it cannot. Designed with the same logic, TOKİ also cannot deliver any good.
[More]
