On top of this contented solitude, the world is at the dawn of a new era that will exacerbate the isolation of Turkish companies.

Are you aware that Turkey is in direct contact with only a small part of the world? If we divide the world into four main trade zones, Turkey is barely active in one and a half of them. All there is for Turkey in the rest of them is a deep solitude. No one cares about us there. And we act like our Ottoman ancestors, who refused to learn foreign languages during the enlargement of the empire. We are not aware that the times have changed. We do not even heed the saying, “if the time doesn’t suit you, you suit the time.”

Let me share my observation first: Turkey is in contact with only a small part of the world. Let’s divide the world into four main trade zones, namely Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. More than half of Turkey’s exports are to Europe. The share of Turkey in Europe’s total imports, on the other hand, is only 1 percent. It was in 2000; it is today. No progress at all. The biggest progress has been made in the Middle East and North Africa. Turkey’s share in the region’s total imports increased from less than 2 percent in 2000 to 4 percent in 2010.  Nevertheless, I intend to consider this half a success as the market is one-tenth of that of Europe's. Turkey is almost completely absent in the American and Asian markets, with a market share of one in a thousand in each.

You see a Turkish entrepreneur on every flight, but the figures are self-explanatory. You cannot become an industrial giant by desperately racing around. You need systematic action. To be a big exporter, you need to have sophisticated products to export. You cannot become a world country by exporting small fry. You will be left in deep solitude instead. I realized this the other day while I was chatting with a friend who knows about world affairs. He said to me in a huff, “What shall we do? Sell hazelnuts to Korea?” We were talking about the free trade agreement with Korea. We were discussing what would be worth exporting. Construction supplies, they already produce. Korea’s construction supplies industry has progressed unlike that of Turkey’s since they have not neglected the consultancy services, unlike Turkey, which can only produce steel, cement, and ceramics. Construction exports are ruled out, then. How about automobiles? Don’t even consider it, Korea has better. It even has its own domestic brands. They are the sixth larger automotive producer in the world; Turkey is the sixteenth. They produce 4.5 million automobiles a year; we produce around one million.

Having realized all of this, one cannot stop thinking what Turkey has done wrong. Lately I have been of the view that Turkey’s proximity to the European market is its biggest fortune and its biggest misfortune at the same time. Since Turkey’s entrepreneurs have gotten used to the convenience of the European market, they have refrained from making the effort to break into other markets. Having easy access to this close and large market where doing business is easy, they have become lazy.

Check Turkey’s foreign trade performance: it moves to new markets only if the existing ones push it away. This is the whole story behind the recent rise in trade with the Middle East and North Africa. It is not that Turkey had this as a goal. No, the European market had shrunk and Turkey had to find another way. The moral of the story is that the problem of Turkish companies is not to enter but to secure a place in international markets. This has been the case except for the European market. Turkey seems to be happy with being isolated. Wrong, but true.

On top of this contented solitude, the world is at the dawn of a new era which will further isolate Turkish companies. This is for two reasons. First, for Turkish companies to do business with European partners, the Turkish government does not necessarily have to be on good terms with its European counterparts. But this is not the case in the Middle East. There, the market economy does not function. Companies do not engage with each other if their governments do not engage with each other. Except for Israel, this is the rule. Second is the fact that the Hezbollah kidnapped Turkish pilots in Lebanon in order to secure the release of its members captured in Syria. Turkey's being considered as part of the internal affairs of Syria certainly will limit the mobility of Turkish businesspeople. This is bad. It is not what you do, but how you are perceived that matters.

It is not good news that Turkey's isolation is rising when it already needed to overcome its solitude.

This commentary was published in Hürriyet Daily News on 20.08.2013