The way to achieve rapid growth in Turkey is to improve urban labour productivity.

OK, I do not know how to start. And it is not politically correct to say 'Turk' with a pop. We are at the age of discovering our ethnical identities. This was not so when I was a child. However this is the only way I can put my point. Sorry in advance for the inconvenience.

When I was a child, the phrase generally read "One Turk worth the whole world." But when it comes to economic performance; one Turk hardly make a 'lazy' French. If you get three Turks together to form the Voltron, they can barely reach the amount one French produces. Today let me continue from where I stopped last Tuesday. Nowadays I am obsessed with labour productivity issue which I believe is of great importance.

Let me first summarize the previous part. In 1961 32 percent of the population lived in urban areas. As of 2009, this ratio increased up to 70 percent. Production of a labour per hour was 100 units in urban and 28 units in rural areas. That is to say, if could find a job, one migrating from rural to urban areas could quadruple his/her productivity. Until today, Turkey managed rapid growth to some extent thank to immigration. But this possibility is fading away. Given that 70 percent of the population already lives in urban areas, this opportunity cannot be extended much further. This was the first point I highlighted on Tuesday.

When talking about labour productivity, we refer to the national income produced per hour. OECD for instance provides comparable figures for labour productivity. I checked the accounts for 2004. According to this, national income per hour worked is US$12.7 in Turkey and US$47.7 in France. Considering production per hour, France does not seem to have an apparent productivity problem. The problem in France is mainly weekly working hours being shorter. French people do not like 'working'. However, in Turkey we work longer but produce less than French. In Turkey, labour productivity in urban areas quadruples that in rural areas. On the other hand, labour productivity in France is almost four times of that in Turkey. Let this be the second point to underline.

The third one goes as follows: The way to achieve rapid growth in Turkey is to improve urban labour productivity. And this is relating to establish the institutional infrastructure, education system, legal system, and administrative system in the Eurozone also in Turkey. It is not that Turkish people do have an evident oddness. In this sense, the process of convergence to the European Union is of importance for Turkey. It is still of importance. And it is unfortunate that the process is being prolonged.

Improving labour productivity in Turkey is both useful and critical in ensuring rapid growth. But is Turkey made any efforts to this end? The document to refer to in this respect is the Medium Term Program (MTP) MTP is the document which is supposed to discuss the current issues of Turkey's economy as well as the measures devised to solve those issues. On the other hand, the newly announced MTP is neither assertive in terms of targets nor laud in terms of the current issues of Turkey's economy. An assessment by TEPAV economist Esen Caglar can be read at TEPAV's website.

By the way, MTP is a three-year program. So we can conclude that labour productivity will not be on the agenda over the next three years. Is this wise? It is not, indeed.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 29.10.2010