In this milieu where the wounds of the crisis are not yet completely relieved, countries taking series of boosting measures will come out ahead.

It is clear that Turkey is not in the first league in terms of its economic prosperity level. Furthermore, the gap between countries in the first league and Turkey does not narrow down no matter what. On the bright side, the gap does not widen, either. There appears a strange form of stability when Turkey's economic status is concerned.

The ostensible fundamental reason for this is the 4.5 percent average growth rate over the last six decades. The conclusion to be extracted here is quite apparent: Turkey has to achieve a growth rate higher than 4.5 percent in order to close the gap. But how much higher the rate should be? Existing research reveals that Turkey can converge to the first league countries in a considerably short time span if 7 percent average growth rate is achieved.

Growth performance does not give hope

Unfortunately, Turkey's growth performance in the aftermaths of the 2001 crisis does not give hope in this respect. Average growth rate over the 2002-2010 is no different than that over the previous six decades. What is more, three-year average growth rate targeted in the recently announced medium term program covering the 2011-2013 period is not promising: 5 percent.

Of course saying 'let Turkey grow 7 percent from now on' is not enough. And it is not possible anymore for the Central Bank to drop interest rate another three points. It is not possible to increase budget expenditures to close the income gap between developed countries and Turkey, either. We need to take 'deeper' action under the broad theme 'reform'. Yet, making reforms is not an easy task. We can expect that ruling power being strong could ease this challenge to a certain extent. I have summarized Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan's views on reformation:  He argued that the working order regulating the form of the parliamentary operations made it harder to launch comprehensive laws. He also claimed that the opposition parties did their utmost to further this challenge.

The following is an important point to highlight: Reforms concern significantly all sections of the society. They create winners alongside with losers. In this context, it would be wise to prefer to pass the reforms from the parliament 'hardly' than 'easily'. Such challenge would reinforce efforts for 'reconciliation' and the resulting law receives broad acceptance. 

The global crisis has not ended
In a recent meeting President of Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) said that they, together with representatives of business world, are carrying out negotiations with Honorable Prime Minister, Deniz Baykal and Devlet Bahçeli on three different law drafts. He said, opposition party leaders claimed to support the passing of the said laws: Law of Obligations, Turkish Commercial Code and Code of Civil Procedures.

The global crisis is not fully defeated yet. Measures the US has been taking to turn around the economy leads to trouble in developing countries such as Turkey. It appears that Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain will be a trouble for the European Union for some time. Future of the Euro can become a matter of debate, too. In such a milieu, countries taking economic boosting measures one after another will come out ahead. Turkey can also take such measures. We should not be confined to 5 percent average growth rate.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 18.11.2010