The pictures below of two families from Egypt and Chad, respectively, are good course materials for understanding the technology content of the import demands of the two countries.

When I was wandering around Iraqi Kurdistan some while ago, district electricity generators were one of the things that attracted my attention. I learned later that this used to be the case also in Turkey. Back then I wrote a commentary for the newspaper Radikal with the title "Have you ever installed a line at the power plant of a district?" A friend of mine sent me an e-mail saying "We used to do it in Yenipazar, Aydın." Have you ever thought about how the infrastructure can affect the import demand of a country? Let's do that together.

Now assume that you are responsible for designing Turkey's export policy for the automobile industry. What is the chief precondition for exporting automobiles to a country? To begin with, the country must have a dealer network. What else? You must provide for repair services. It would be useful if spare parts also were exported. What else? If the country lacks a network of gas stations, the access area of automobiles will be limited considerably. Therefore, it would be wise to establish gas stations around the towns and even in remote roads. Otherwise, it will be costly to have an automobile. What else? You would need an energy source to run the gas pumps in the remote stations. Thus, the country must have a national electric network. This would reduce the cost of doing business. You also would need to ensure the security of the remote stations. No one opens a business to get robbed. Moreover, it would be useful to have a national communication network to ask for help if something unfortunate happened. And? Before anything else, you would need asphalt roads on which automobiles can travel. If there are no asphalt roads, there will be no automobiles. If the automobile cannot be driven, you cannot export them to that relevant country.

These photos are taught in a course at TOBB-ETÜ

First, you should export construction supplies and machinery so that roads can be built. Meanwhile, you export the equipment to install gas stations and food products. Automobiles come last. You check the technology content of your trade with neighboring countries; you start with the lowest-technology segments of the construction industry. Then, you gradually improve the technology content of exports. If you produce mobile phones or iPhones, matters change. Otherwise, this is the deal.

I present the two photos below for those who want a visual explanation. Below are two families, the first one in Egypt and the other in Chad. The supplies in front of them are their food consumption for one week. When I was teaching at the TOBB University of Economics and Technology, I showed these pictures to my students. So, is the technology content of the import technology of Egypt and Chad the same? No, it is not. Was the message clear enough?

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 22.07.2011